


RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



THIRD EDITION 



By JOHN S. HIT TELL. 



V 



(^ SAN FRANCISCO: 
A. ROMAN AND COMPANY 

NEW YORK: W. J. WIDDLETON. 

1867. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in tlie year 1867, by Jokn S. 
HiTTELL, in tlie Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United 
States, for the Northern District of California. 



fS64 



ALTA CALIFORNIA PBINTIN'O HOtlBB. 



I 
I 
f 



AFFIDAVIT 

THAT THIS BOOK IS EXCLUSIVELY CALIFORNIAN. 

State of California, j 

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO, f 

JOHN S. HITTELL, being duly sworn, deposes and says that he ordered 
A. Kosenfield, of the Alta California Printing House, to print and E. Bosqui & Co., 
Binders, to bind a number of copies of The Resources of California, in said city, using 
only Californian material; that he has the affidavit of S. P. Taylor, that the printing 
paper was made at the Pioneer Paper Mill in Marin County; that he has the affidavit 
of Wm. P. Harrison, agent of the San Lorenzo Paper Mill, that the thick paper and 
pasteboard used in the binding was made there; that he has the affidavit of J. J. 
Grady, that he tanned in this city the Morocco and Sheepskins used in the binding; 
that he hai the affidavit of L. J. Rector, that the Thread was made in the Oakland 
Cotton Mill in this state; that he has the affidavit of Thomas Reilly, that the Gold 
Leaf was beaten in this city; and that he has the affidavits of A. Rusenfield, and 
J. H. Mitchell, foreman of the bindery of E. Bosqui & Co., that the said matei-ials 
and none other of their kind were used in printing and binding said book; that the 
printing and binding were done in this city; and that the book is so far as they know, 
exclusively Californian in its manufacture. And deponent declares that he wrote said 
book in this city, and relying on said affidavits, declares that this book is exclusively 
Californian in composition and manufacture. 

JOHN S. HITTELL. 

Sworn to and subscribed before me, this tenth 
day of September, 1867. 

H. S. TIBBEY, 

Notary Public. 

I certify that the above is a correct copy of an affidavit made by me and that the 
book in which this is affixed is one of those referred to in the affidavit. 




H 

St 



To the Socuty of 

CALIFORNIA PIONEERS, 

the Organization which 

represents 

the Men who founded 

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE 

on the Pacific, 

this Book 

is respectfully dedicated, 

By tHE Author. 



PEEFAOE. 



I UNDERTAKE to write the resources of a state, wHch, 
though young in years, small in population, and remote 
from the chief centres of civilization, is yet known to the 
furthest corners of the earth, and, during the last twelve 
years, has had an influence upon the course of human life, 
and the prosperity and trade of nations, more powerful than 
that exerted during the same period by kingdoms whose 
subjects are numbered by millions, whose history dates 
back through thousands of years, and whose present stock 
of wealth began to accumulate before our continent was 
discovered, or our lans;ua2;e was formed. I write of a land 
of wonders. I write of California, which has astonished 
the world by the great migration that suddenly built up 
the first large Caucasian community on the shores of the 
North Pacific ; by her vast yield of gold, amounting within 
thirteen years to $700,000,000, which has sensibly affected 
the markets of labor and money in all the leading nations 
of Christendom ; by the rapid development and great extent 
of her commerce ; by the greatness of her chief port, which 
at one time had more large ships at her anchorage than 
were ever seen together in the harbor of eitherLiverpool, 
Kew York, or London ; by the swift settlement of her remote 
districts ; by the prompt organization of her government ; 



IV PREFACE. 



by the liberality with which the mines were thrown open 
and made free to all comers ; by the rush of adventurers 
of every color and of every tongue ; by the prices of her 
labor, and the rates of her interest for money, double those of 
the other American states, and' quadruple those of Europe ; 
by the vast extent of her gold-fields, and the facility with 
which they could be worked ; by the auriferous rivers in 
which fortunes could be made in a week ; by antediluvian 
streams richer than those of the present era ; by beds of 
lava, which, after filling np the beds of antediluvian rivers, 
were left, by the washing away of the banks and adjacent 
plains, to stand as mountains, marking the position of great 
treasures beneath ; by nuggets each worth a fortune ; by 
the peculiar nature of her mining industry ; by new and 
strange inventions ; by the washing down of mountains ; 
by filling the rivers of the Sacramento basin with thick 
mud throughout the year ; by lifting a hundred mountains 
from their beds ; by six thousand miles of mining ditches ; 
by aqueducts less durable, but scarcely less wonderfid 
than those of ancient Rome ; by silver mines that promise 
to rival those of Peru; by quicksilver mines surpassing 
those of Spain ; by great deposits of sulphur and asphal- 
tum ; by lakes of borax ; by mud volcanoes, geysers, and 
natural bridges ; by a valley of romantic and sublime beauty, 
shut in by walls nearly perpendicular and more than three- 
quarters of a mile high, with half a dozen great cascades, 
in one of which the water at two leaps falls more tlian the 
third of a mile ; by a climate the most conducive to health, 
and the most favorable to mental and physical exertion — so 
temperate on the middle coast that ice is never seen and 
thin summer clothing never worn, and that January differs 
in average temperature only eight degrees of Fahrenheit 
from July; by a singular botany, including the most 
splendid known group of coniferous trees, of which half a 



P K E F A C 1<: . 



dozen species grow to be more than two hundred and fifty 
feet high, and one species has reached a height of four hun- 
dred and fifty feet, and a diameter of forty feet in the trunk ; 
by a peculiar zoology, composed chiefly of animals found 
only on this coast, and including the largest bird north of 
the equator, and the largest and most formidable quadruped 
of the continent ; b}^ the importation in early years of all 
articles of food, and then by the speedy development of 
agriculture, until her wheat and wine have gone to the 
furthest cities in search of buyers, and until her markets 
are unrivalled in the variety and magnificence of home- 
grown fruits ; by the largest crop of grain, and the largest 
specimens of fruits and vegetables on record ; by a society 
where for years there was not one woman to a score of men, 
and where all the men were in the bloom of manhood ; by 
the first large migration of eastern Asiatics from their own 
continent; by the first settlement of Chinamen among 
white men ; by the entire lack of mendicants, paupers, and 
alms-houses ; by the rapid fluctuations of trade ; by the ac- 
cumulation of wealth in the hands of men, most of whom 
came to the country poor ; by the practice, universal m 
early years, of going armed ; by the multitude of deadly 
affrays, and by extra-constitutional courts, which sometimes 
punished villains with immediate execution, and sometimes 
proceeded with a gravity and slow moderation that might 
become the most august tribunals. I write of California 
while she is still youthful, and full of marvels ; while her 
population is still unsettled ; while her business is still 
fluctuating, her wages high, her gold abimdant, and her 
birth still fresh in the memory of men and women who 
have scarcely reached their majority ; and I write of her 
while she still offers a wide field for the adventurous, the 
enterprising, and the young, who have life before them, ^nd 
wish to commence it where they may have the freest career, 



PREFACE. 



in full sight of the greatest rewards for snccess, and witli 
the fewest chances of failure. 

The general public are aware that California is a peculiar 
state, and their attention has often been called to certain 
prominent points of wonder, like those to which I have 
just referred ; but hitherto there has been no careful at- 
tempt to sum up all that is known of her resources and 
natural history. I have undertaken that task, and the re- 
sult of my undertaking is in this book placed before the 
^'eader. I have been a Californian since 1849, and expect 
to be as long as I may live. All the most interesting as- 
sociations of my life are connected with this state. I 
arrived in the country while it was still under a territorial 
government, and more than a year before it was organized 
as a state under act of Congress. I saw the land in its 
original w^ildness, and saw society, order, trade, industry 
and polity developed ; and I now see about me the, begin- 
nings and promises of science, art, literature, philosophy, 
and whatever can enrich or honor humanity. I have seen 
the state grow up, and its history is part of my life. The 
land-marks of its chorography, and the prominent events of 
its political, social, and industrial progress, mark epochs 
in my memory. Many of the happiest days of my life 
have been spent here, and here I hope to enjoy whatever 
blessings the future may have in store for me. If then I 
fail to do justice in my book to California, the failure will 
not be for any lack of love of her. Neither will it be for 
any lack of attention or industry. During the last nine 
years, I have assiduously collected every thing within my 
reach relative to the industry, resources, natural history and 
population of the state. I have looked through all the 
newspapers published between Crescent City and San Diego, 
and have examined all the books written about the country, 
Spanisli, Jb'rench and German, as well as English. I have 



PREFACE. VU 

been in the extreme nortli, and the extreme south ; I have 
gone to both extremities by land and sea ; I have travelled 
through the centre of her great basin ; I am intimately ac- 
quainted with her richest agricultural districts ; I know 
something of her mining and agriculture by experience and 
practice ; and, hnally, I have endeavored to compress into 
this book all the important att^iinable facts. Amidst so 
much information, there are undoubtedly some little errors ; 
but the fair critic, before condemning and expatiating upon 
minor faults, will pass judgment upon the'question whether 
the book is or is not more comprehensive and instinictive 
than any other, or than all others relating to the same 
subject. 

Of course, when I quote from the writings of others, I 
use quotation marks, and give credit according to the rules 
of honorable autliors ; but I have adopted, without quota- 
tion marks, various passages from articles written by my- 
self, and published in different newspapers and magazines. 
Since the work is intended for popular use, and should be 
free from every thing not intelligible and interesting to the 
general reader, I have made no references to authorities ; 
and, indeed, I have drawn my information from so great a 
variety of sources (in many instances newspapers), that it 
would have been very inconvenient for nie, and cumber- 
some to the book, to cite the authority for every statement. 
In case," however, that the accuracy of any statement in the 
work should be called in question, I think that I can pro- 
duce in CA'Cry case credible evidence, and in most cases the 
conclusive proof While I have drawn my material from 
many different sources, I claim as much originality as is 
possible for so comprehensive a collection of facts, in so 
many and so distinct branches of knowledge. 

J. S.-H. 

San Francisco, March, 1862. 



INTRODUCTION 



PROGRESS OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS. 



§ 1. Preliminary. — Since the first edition of this book was prepared 
for the press five years have elapsed, and in that time some progress 
has been made by the industry of California, and some new light has 
been thrown upon the resources and physical geography of the State. 
In this introductory chapter, I shall try to state briefly the main points 
of the additional information obtained since 1862. 

§ 2. The Galifornian Alps. — The State Geological Survey discovered, 
in the summer of 1864, that the Sierra Nevada, between latitudes 35° 
and 38*^, has the wonderful mountain region of California. Shasta, 
which towers in solitary grandeur 7,000 feet above everything in its 
vicinity, and shows its mantle of eternal snow to a wide area in three 
States, is no longer our highest peak. Mt. Whitney, in latitude 36° 
30'', which is surrounded by so many other peaks of nearly equal 
height as to attract no special attention from a distance, rises to about 
15,000 feet, while Shasta is only 14,440. 

Not only is Shasta dethroned, but also Switzerland. The Helvetian 
Republic has, for hundreds of years, had the fame of possessing the 
greatest area of elevated land, and the largest number of great peaks 
within the limit of high civilization, but the newly discovered moun- 
tain region surpasses Switzerland. That country has only four peaks 
above 13,000 feet, and not more than 150 square miles above 8,000 feet, 
while we have 100 peaks above 13,000 feet and 300 or more square 
miles above 8,000 feet. 

This Alpine region of California occupies the upper part of the 
Sierra Nevada, from Castle Peak to Kern River, a distance of 200 
miles ; and throughout that distance all the main peaks rise to 13,000 
feet or more. The exact height of Mt. Whitney is not known. The 
surveying party made two trials to get to the summit, but failed. C. R. 



ii INTRODUCTION, 

King reached an elevation of 14,730 feet, and was there arrested by 
a precipice. He thought there were 300 or 400 feet of elevation above 
him. The main Fork and the North Fork of Kern River rise on the 
southern and western slopes of this mountain, and King's River on its 
northwestern slope. The main Fork of Kern River runs southward 
for thirty miles through a tremendous caiion, in the upper part of 
which the river falls 10,000 feet within six miles. A mountain whose 
summit is six miles east of Mono Lake, and 7,000 feet above it — a 
pretty steep ascent — is called Mt. Dana. A peak further south, with 
an elevation of 13,700 feet, is called Mt. Grant ; another of 14,500 feet 
is called Mt. Tyndall ; a third is styled Mt. Brewer. From Castle Peak, 
in latitude 38°, for a distance of 200 miles along the summit of the 
Sierra, there is no pass known feasible for a wagon, or less than 11,000 
feet in altitude. It would not be safe to assert, however, that no lower 
pass will be discovered. Much of the range has not yet been exam- 
ined. Throughout all this Alpine region the views are very extensive, 
and the scenery grand beyond that of Switzerland, though not so 
picturesque ; that is, not so beautiful in little places. At some future 
time it will become a place of great resort for tourists and travelers. 

§ 3. The Great Brought— The winters of 1862-63 and 1864-65 
proved to be unusually dry, the former bringing only 15i and the latter 
only 8i inches of rain at San Francisco, instead of the average of 21 
inches. Two such dry seasons coming together proved very disastrous, 
and there was a general failure of crops, and a great mortality among 
cattle. It was estimated that out of 3,000,000 horses, neat cattle and 
sheep that were in the State in 1862, 800,000 perished by starvation 
within two years, and most of those which survived had a very narrow 
escape. The southern coast counties suffered most severely, some of 
them losing two-thirds of their cattle, which were the main stock of 
their wealth. The year 1865 is known as the year of the great drought, 
and the native Californians say that at no time within forty years had 
two consecutive seasons passed with so little rain. 

§ 4. The Earthquake of 1865— On the 8th October, 1865, San Fran- 
cisco was visited by an earthquake that surpassed in violence any 
shock felt here within the recollection of tlie oldest inhabitants. It 
occurred on Sunday at 12:45, P. M. just about the time when the 
morning services were being closed in the churches. Two-thirds of 
the front of a new four-story brick building on the corner of Third and 
Mission streets (the mortar of which had not had time to dry yet) was 
thrown down. Parts of the fire-walls and chimneys of two dozen brick 



INTRODUCTION. Ul 

buildings were tlirown down. The walls of the City Hall, of the old 
Merchant's Exchange on Battery street, of California Engine House on 
Market street, the Pennsylvania Engine House on Jackson street, the 
Market building at the corner of Pine and Market streets, besides a 
multitude of others, were badly cracked. Several wooden buildings 
which were being raised, and were supported on temporary scaffolding 
or blocks, were thrown down and demolished. The falling cornices 
and fire- walls filled some of the streets with dust, and fell on four or 
five persons, some of whom were seriously hurt, though the injuries 
did not prove fatal in any case. In those churches where the services 
were not closed, the people rushed for the doors in a very disorderly 
manner. 

§ 5. Geological Survey. — A geological survey of the State was com- 
menced in November, 18G0, and has been since prosecuted under charge 
of Prof. J. D. Whitney. He has been assisted by Wm. M. Qabb, in 
paleontology, W. H. Brewer and H. N. Bolander in botany, J. G. 
Cooper in zoology, A. Remond and Clarence King in general geology, 
Wm. Ashburner in economical geology, C. F. Hoffman, V. Wacken- 
reuder and J. T. Gardner in topography. The expense of the work 
has so far been about $100,000. Only two volumes of the report have 
been published, but others are ready for the press, and several will soon 
be out. The following are some of the results of the survey : 

The coast mountains rose from the sea before the Sierra Nevada, and 
the latter range was for long after much lower than now ; and a vege- 
tation, different from that which now flourishes here, covered the land. 
Afterwards came a series of great volcanic convulsions ; the Sierra 
Nevada was lifted up on three successive occasions, separated by long 
intervals. A hundred volcanoes poured out vast floods of liquid fire 
and of water mixed with ashes. Mounts Shasta and Lassen, Pilot Peak, 
Spanish Peak, Old Man Mountain, and Castle Peak, and a multitude 
of others for which we have no names, were all ablaze at once. There 
were intervals of rest between their periods of activity, and alternate 
beds of lava and of alluvial gravel or soil exist on the hills as deposited 
in what were then valleys or the beds of rivers. An area of not less 
than 20,000 square miles is now covered with lava. The three periods 
of upheaval were first at the close of the Cretaceous era ; second after 
the deposition of the Miocene tertiary ; and third after the later 
Pliocene. This last upheaval is supposed to be still in progress. 

It was during this period of volcanic activity that the earliest man 
of whom any remains have been found in the world, lived, and he lived 



JV INTRODUCTION. 

in what is now Calaveras County. A few years since, some human 
bones were found in England and France, showing that men lived in 
those lands in a former epoch, contemporaneously with the hyena, the 
rhinoceros, the elephant, and numerous other animals which dis- 
appeared from Europe long before the beginning of our historical re- 
cords. This discovery made a great sensation in the learned world, and 
was tjie basis of Lyell's great book on "The Antiquity of Mankind." 
The ancient human bones of Europe were foimd in the later tertiary 
formation ; but now a human skull has been found in California in the 
pliocene, a much older formation. This skull is, therefore, the rem- 
nant not only of the earliest known pioneer of this State, but the old- 
est known human being. The skull was found in a shaft 150 feet deep, 
two miles from Angel's, in Calaveras county, by a miner named James 
Matson, who gave it to Mr. ScriBner, a merchant, and he gave it to Dr. 
Jones, who sent it to the State Geological Survey. Prof. Whitney 
went to the place, examined it, questioned the persons who had had 
the skull in their possession, and he is entirely satisfied that it was 
found in the shaft, as represented. The shaft passes through five beds 
of lava and volcanic tufa, and four deposits of auriferous gravel. The 
upper bed of tufa is homogeneous, and without any crack through 
which the skull could have been introduced from above. The published 
volume of the State Survey on the Geology of California states that 
man existed here contemporaneously with the mastodon, but this fossil 
proves that he was here before the. time in which the mastodon was 
known to extist. Prof. Whitney has divided the animal paleontology 
ot the State into two epochs ; the pliocene, or the epoch before the 
great volcanic eruptions which covered a large part of the State, and 
the post-pliocene, which came after the eruptions. Most of the promi- 
nent animals, the fossils of which have been found here, such as the 
mastodon, elephant, rhinoceros, bison, tapir, mammoth bull, horse and 
buflklo, have not been encountered in the pliocene, and all the vegeta- 
bles so far met there are of species not now living in the State. 

After the volcanic epoch came the glacial epoch, in which glaciers, 
far grander than any that now exist in the alps, were found in all the 
large ravines on the high mountains, where their marks still remain, 
though the rivers of ice gradually disappeared before the .gradually 
increasing warmth of the climate. The auriferous gravel in the 
ancient river beds was deposited in the latter pliocene, and it was 
followed by a great outbreak of volcanic energy, which covered the 
gravel with beds of lava and other eruptive material. 



INTRODUCTION. . y 

The gold deposits of the State lie not in the Silurian rock^, which 
were previously considered to be the basis of all rich auriferous regions, 
but in the Jurassic or Triassic lithological formations of later date. 

The coal region of California lies not in the tertiary rocks, as was 
previously supposed, but in the Cretaceous, the highest portion of the 
secondary era. 

The limits of the Jurassic and Cretaceous have been traced with 
tolerable accuracy over most of the area of the State. 

All the principal high points of the State, long known, have been 
ascended, their geological character examined, and their precise al- 
titude ascertained. 

A large district, previously unheard of by the public, has been found 
to rise to a height of eleven thousand feet or more, with a hundred 
peaks that rise about thirteen thousand feet, and a general elevation, 
extent and grandeur of scenery that surpass Switzerland. 

The Big Tree has been found to exist, not merely in a few isolated 
groves, as was supposed, but in extensive forests, with tens of thou- 
sands of trees, along a considerable portion of the Sierra Nevada. 

Large bodies of excellent pasturage were found in places previously 
unknown to the whites. 

It has been ascertained that the men and mammoths, whose bones 
are found deep in the hills of the mining districts, lived together in 
the same age, and their remains were buried side by side in the same 
natural convulsions, which happened many thousands, perhaps hun- 
dreds of thousands, of years ago. 

An extensive collection of minerals, vegetables, and preserved or 
stuffed animals, has been obtained, and will be prepared for exhibition 
so soon as the State prepares a proper place for it. 

§ 6. Wheat. — Within the last three years much larger crops of 
wheat have been grown than ever before, and during the twelve 
months ending July 1, 1867, San Francisco exported wheat and flour 
equivalent to 1,700,000 barrels of flour, more than twice as much as 
was ever exported in any one year before. The production of barley 
is about the same as it was seven years ago, while the area sowii in 
wheat has increased considerably. Of late, many hills which were 
before untouched by the plough, have been sown in wheat. 

^ 7. Fruit. — There has been a very slight increase in the number 
of apple, pear and peach orchards since 1862. Cherries have been 
very profltable near San Francisco, and a multitude of trees have been 
planted in the vicinity of the bay. It has been found that some trees 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

which thrive in the coast valleys do not thrive in the Sierra Nevada. 
Mr. Weatherwax, an orchardist at Mud Springs, El Dorado county, has 
ascertained, by trial, the Benick is the most profitable apple there, and 
after it come the Red Romanite, the Red Cheek Pippin, Prior's Red, 
the Belleflower and Esopus Spitzenberg. The most profitable pears 
are the Bartlett, Easter Beurre, Vicar of Wakefield and Winter Nellis. 
Mr. Nickerson, of Placer county, obtained, as gross receipts from a 
years's crop on his best trees, eight years old, the following prices, viz : 
figs, $75 ; pear, peach, apple and plum, each, $60 ; apricot, $50, and 
nectarine, $45. 

§ 8. The Grape. — The number of vineyards has increased greatly 
within five years, especially in the counties north of the bay and in 
the Sierra Nevada. According to the Report of the Surveyor General 
of the State, for 1866, in that year 1,312,730 gallons of wine were made, 
and there were 15,410,077 grape vines in vineyard. It is not determined 
yet, by common consent among winegrowers, what are the best wine 
grapes, but many of the most intelligent viniculturists think that for 
light white wines, the best grapes are the Golden Chasselas, the Burger, 
the White Rhenish Muscatella, the Riessling, the Chasselas Fontaine- 
bleau, and the White Green ; and for red wine, the Zenfenthal, the 
Black Malvoisie, the Black Burgundy, the Running Burgundy, Black 
Cabrunet and the Traminer. For the table, the White Muscat of Alex- 
andria bears the best price ; and for raisins, the White Malaga, called 
also the Fiherzagos, is preferred. 

In the first and second edition of The Resources, the largest grape 
vine of the State was inadvertently passed over without notice. In 
1765 Seilora Dominguez, a native of Mexico, and a resident of Santa 
Barbara county, rode from Monterey to her home, and before starting 
she picked up a grape cutting for a switch. When she had ridden 
twenty miles she saw that her switch was budding, so she took care of 
it, and after getting to her liouse at Montecito, she planted it in the 
garden. The vine grew, and now its trunk is 15 inches in diameter, 
and its branches are supported by an arbor 114 feet long and 78 feet 
wide. Its annual yield of grapes is three or four tons. Sertora Domin- 
guez, who planted it, died on the 9th May, 1865, at the age of 105 years, 
after having given more than 300 children, grand children, great-grand 
children, and greatrgreat-grand children to the State. The vine was 
watered from a mineral spring, find the old lady said the grapes and 
the wine from it were better than any others in the neighborhood, 
and that the superior excellence was due to the mineral water. 



INTRODUCTION. VU 

E. M. Smith, in Coloma, has an Isabella vine which is now in its fifth 
year, and in 186G it bore 1,500 bunches of grapes, which weighed 420 
pounds. He estimates the yield this year at 2,500 bunches and 1,000 
pounds. I visited the vine and started to count the bunches, but gave 
it up in despair, and determined to accept Mr. Smith's estimate. 

The value of the wine exported in 18G3 was $79,000 ; in 1864, 
$41,000 ; in 18G5, $89,000 ; in 18GG, $1G9,000 ; and in the first half 
of 18G7, $G2,000. 

The principal wholesale wine houses of San Francisco are the fol- 
lowing, viz: The United Anaheim Wine Growers' Association. (B. 
Dryfas, agent,) deals only in Anaheim wines ; G. Groezinger & Co, 
Mercado & Seully, and Kohler & Frohling, deal in California wines 
generally; M. Keller and A. Eberhardt deal chiefly in Los Angeles 
wines ; and I. Landsberger and M. Hoadley deal chiefly in still and 
sparkling Sonoma wines. Any orders to these houses for wines, by 
express, would no doubt be promptly and honestly filled. Persons in 
the East desirous of getting specimens of California wines, can send 
their money with instructions. 

The following are the chief varieties — viz : Red Wine, White Wine 
Port, Sherry, Madeira, Sparkling Sonoma and Angelica. The Red and 
White are usually the plain grape juice in a vinous state of fermenta- 
tion ; the Port, Sherry and Madeira are made stronger, either by letting 
the grapes remain on the vine until much of the water has evaporated 
or else by adding brandy. The Angelica is not fermented. The lio-ht 
wines of California are almost invariably pure ; and the strong wines 
have no admixture that deserves to be considered an adulteration. 

§ 9. Hop.— The cultivation of the hop on a large scale has been es- 
tablished with profit. Several fields of cotton, of several hundred 
acres each, were cultivated for two or three years during the war but 
now the business is less profitable, and most of those who engao-ed in 
it have abandoned it. In 1866, 198 bales of Californian cotton were 
brought to San Francisco, from Tulare and Los Angeles counties. 
Flax seed and the castor oil are both grown in the State now. 

§ 10. SUk Worms. — Extensive fields have been planted with the 
white mulberry, and the breeding of silk worms has been com- 
menced on an extensive scale, and a silk factory has been erected at 
San Josd. It is found that the worms thrive wonderfully well in our 
climate, and are so heavy that it is sufficient to feed them once a day, 
by giving them a big supply in the morning. 

§ 11. Quartz 3fimug. —Qn&rtz mining in California is in a very 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

satisfactory and progressive 'Condition. The number of mines being 
opened and mills being built is much larger tlian at any previous 
time ; and, what is more important, the enterprises now in progress 
are in the hanfls of men who, as a class, have more learning, more ex- 
perielnce and more prudence than those who erected quartz mills 
before the discovery of the Washoe mines. All the energy and capi- 
tal of California were concentrated in silver for four or five years, and 
we are now just getting to study gold-quartz mining as a regular busi- 
ness. 

Among the principal quartz mines of the State are the following : 
The Princeton Mine, which has produced $4,000,000 ; the Pine Tree 
and Josephine, which together produced $350,000 from the 1st May, 
1860, to the 1st May, 1863 ; the Mariposa Mine produced $84,948 in 
1864. Those four mines are in the Mariposa grant, and liaA^e all been 
idle since 1865, because of mismanagement. The New Britain has 
yielded $52,000 ; the Sherman, $200,000 ; the Kite's Cove yields $150 
per ton ; and the Potts' Mine, $50,000 annually. 

In Tuolumne county, the Soulsby yields $100,000 annually; the 
Piatt has paid $40,000 profit ; the Grizzly has produced $125,000 ; the 
Excelsior, $300,000; the Sell & Martin, $150,000; the Tennessee, 
$60,000 ; the Austrian, $100,000 ; and the Sophia, $45,000 ; the total 
yield of the App, the Reist, the Heslep, and the Golden llule have not 
been reported, but they are doing a large amount of work, and are all 
valuable. 

The Morgan Mine, on Carson Hill, in Calaveras county, (according 
to the statement of Thomas Dear, who is reputed to have better op- 
portunities of knowing than any body else,) produced $2,800,000 from 
February, 1850, to December, 1851. Mr. Stevenot, however, who 
claimed an interest in the mine, though he did not succeed in the 
courts, says the sum was $1,500,000. At any rate, immense masses of 
gold were found, and the town of Melones, at the foot of the hill, was 
the largest mining camp in the State for a time. For sixteen years 
the title was in litigation and the mine in idleness. Work has been 
resumed lately. The South Carolina has yielded $400,000 ;• the Re- 
serve, $100,000 ; the Bovee, $600,000 ; Hill's Mine, $250,000 ; and the 
Cherokee, $100,000. 

The Hayvvard mine, in Amador county, has been reported to be the 
most profitable mine in the State. About 24,000 tons- are crushed in 
a year, and there are 120,000 tons in sight. The present supply of ore 
is obtained 1,200 feet below the surtuce, and 300 feet below the level 



INTRODUCTION. ix 

of the sea. The total yield, according to rumor, which no doubt 
exaggerates greatly, has been $6,000,000. The Keystone, a mile and 
a half distant, pays $80,000 a year in dividends. The Oneida, a mile 
and a half distant in the other direction, has produced very large sums, 
and has in sight 90,000 tons of rock, expected to yield about $17 per 
ton. The total expense is about $5 per ton. The Seaton mine has 
yielded $100,000. 

In El Dorado county, the richest mines have been the Pacific, which 
has yielded $500,000 : the Woodside, which yielded $13,000, in 
specimens ; the Danes and the Shepard. 

In Placer county, the Harpending, the Green Emigrant and the 
Schnable, are the most notable. 

In Nevada county, the Eureka, reputed to be the best worked mine 
in the State, has yielded $1,500,000 ; the North Star $500,000 profit ; 
the Allison $2,300,000 ; Massachusetts Hill $5,600,000; New York Hill 
$500,000 ; Missouri Hill $200,000 ; the Fellows $1,000,000 ; Noram- 
bagua $80,000 ; Gold Hill $4,000,000 ; Union Hill $74,000 ; Empire 
$1,300,000 ; Hueston Hill $1,000,000 ; Osborne Hill $1,000,000 ; Lone 
Jack $500,000 ; Gold Tunnel $1,000,000 ; Nevada $400,000 ; Sneath & 
Clay $300,000 ; Lecompton $250,000 ; Wigham $200,000, and Banner 
$200,000. 

The Sierra Buttes yielded $224,000 gross, and $154,000 net, in 1866 ; 
and has three years' supply of ore in sight. This mine has paid more 
regularly than any other in the State, and if the milling capacity were 
increased, could be made to surpass any other mine in the State in 
yield. The Independence, on the same vein, yielded $100,000, in 1866, 
and has ore in sight to last three years. The Primrose, 2 miles distant, 
has yielded $226,000— idle. The Union, one mile from Alleghany, 
yielded $75,000 in a pocket. 

In Plumas county, the Eureka has yielded $1,600,000 ; the Mam- 
moth, $1,000,000 ; the Crescent, $500,000 ; and the Whitney, $68,000. 

In Yuba county, at Brown's Valley, 12 miles from Marysville, and 
not more than 300 feet above the level of the sea, are the Pennsylva- 
nia, which yields 1,000 tons and $10,000 net per month ; the Jefierson, 
which has paid $250,000 of dividends ; and the Dannebroge, which 
has yielded $250,000. 

§ 12. Sulphur ets.— Most of the quartz mines, and especially the 
richer ones, have in the rock from one to five per cent, of sulphurets 
of iron, which contain from $20 to $1,000 per ton of gold. This can- 
:not be obtained by amalgamation ; and the only resource is to separate 
A 



X INTRODUCTION. 

the sulphurets (the specific gravity of which is 5,) from the pulverized 
quartz, (the specific gravity of which is 2^.) This separation, called 
concentration, must be done with the assistance of water. The long 
sluice is now considered the best machine for concentration. The 
sluice has a grade of 3 or 3 inches to 12 feet ; and riffles half an inch 
thick are introduced gradually as the boxes fill up, the sand being 
occasionally stirred with a hoe. When the sand is 8 inches deep, the 
riffles are gradually removed one by one, and the sand again stirred 
up ; and in this way the sulphurets are obtained in a very clean state. 
The sulphurets are then roasted, and put into a chlorine bath. The 
chlorine unites with the gold ; the chloride of gold is dissolved in 
water ; and the gold is precipitated by sulphate of iron. This process 
costs usually about $30 per ton, although one superintendent says the 
expense, exclusive of his own supervision, is only $9. The cost of con- 
centration is $10 per ton of sulphurets where the rock contains one 
per cent. 

. § 13. Cement Mills. — Cement Mills have been brought into use since 
1833. At the bottom of some of the ancient channels, Llie richest pay 
is found in a stratum of clay and gravel, so cemented together that it 
will not dissolve in the sluice ; and the only mode of separating the 
gold from the dirt, heretofore, has been crushing in a stamp mill. 
Many of these mills are now in use, and their number is increasing 
rapidly. The gold is usually coarse in the cement. The material is 
not so hard as quartz, nor is it crushed so fine ; so the crushing does 
not usually cost over 50 cents per ton. A pan has lately been invented 
for reducing cement. It is an iron pan, six feet in diameter, and 
eighteen inches deep, in which four iron rakes, radiating from the cen- 
ter, each with three strong teeth, revolve rapidly. A large stream of 
water pours in, and the pulverized stuff" is carried off" through small 
holes in the bottom. The large stones are discharged through a gate. 
There are two sluices, one to carry off* the stones, and the other to 
carry off" the dissolved clay. 

§ 14. Copper Mining. — Copper mining in California began in 1861, 
and was very profitable for a time, but the price of the metal has 
fallen greatly within the last year or two, and copper mining in this 
State has declined. The amount of ore exported in 1863 was 3,660 
tons ; in 1863, 5,553 tons ; in 1864, 10,334 tons ; in 1865, 17,787 tons ; 
in 1866, 19,813 tons ; and in the first half of 1867, 3,542 tons. Besides 
this ore, about 300 tons of metallic copper have been shipped. The 
ore exported contained on an average about 14 per cent, of metal. 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

§ 15. Coal Mining. — Coal mining, at Monte Diablo, in California, 
commenced in 1861 and advanced very rapidly. In 18G2, 23,000 tons 
were produced, and in 186G, 84,000 tons. It was at first supposed that 
the coal was of very poor quality, and that the supply would soon give 
out ; but these suppositions have proved to be erroneous. 

§ 16. Borax. — The production of borax was commenced in Califor- 
nia in 1865, in which year 1,707 cases, worth $22 per case, were 
exported ; in the next year, 3,171 cases were exported ; and in the 
first half of 1867, 3,671 cases. 

The borax is obtained from Borax Lake, which covers an area of 200 
acres, one mile from the eastern end of Clear Lake, in Lake county. 
The water of the lake is strong with borate of soda, and the mud at 
the bottom of the lake is full of crystals of borax, nearly pure. 

§ 17. Other Minerals. — In 18G6, 5,000 barrels of California petroleum 
were produced. Several tons of sulphur were refined near Clear Lake ; 
and several tons of plumbago were refined at Sonora. An opal mine 
was opened at Mokelumne Hill in 1865, but proved unprofitable, and the 
work has ceased. The stones are abundant, but common in quality. 

§ 18. Treasure Trade. — Up to the end of 1861, the total amount of 
treasure manifested at the San Francisco Custom House for exporta- 
tion, as given in section 177, was $551,603,904. Since '61 the following 
sums have been shipped, viz : in 1862, $45,561,761; in '63, $46,071,920; 
in '64, $55,707,201; in '65, $44,984,546;- in '66, $56,146,577; in the first 
half of '67, $20,804,994. Adding these sums to the total of 12 years 
before, we have $817,881,003. It is well known, howevfer, that large 
sums were exported in early years without entry at the Custom House, 
and ray estimate of $700,000,000 for the total exportation previous to the 
1st January, 1862, has been considered, by business men and bankers, 
in San Francisco, to be as near correct as any estimate could be ; and 
we may assume that in the last six years and a half the production has 
been greater by $35,000,000 than the exportation ; we have a total pro- 
duction of $1,000,000,000 for the coast, up to the 1st July, 1867. 

This production, however, has not been exclusively from California. 
In 1866, Wells, Fargo & Co's Express, which carries all the treasure, 
the transportation of which is published, received at San Francisco 
S24,055,381 from the Northern mines of California, $5,415,711 from 
the Southern mines, $15,215,218 from Nevada, $6,551,284 from the 
Northern Coast, including Victoria, and $2,309,994 from foreign parts. 
During the first half of 1867 the Northern mines sent us $9,647,527, 
the Southern mines $2,110,773, Nevada $9,341,949, and the Northern 
Coast $1,683,857. 



xii IN^rilODUCTION. 

. The yield of Nevada is rapidly increasing ; that of Idaho, which 
supplies most of the gold from the "Northern Coast," is either decreas- 
ing since 1864, or else the treasure is sent eastward overland. Califor- 
nia supplies about three-fifths of the treasure exported from San Fran- 
cisco. One of the. main causes of the decrease in the gold production 
of this State is the tax of $4 per month levied on Chinese miners. Not 
less than ten thousand have left the placers of California within the 
last two years, either for Idaho, Montana, or Nevada. 

§ 19. iSJdjJjnnff- — Previous to 1860 our imports exceeded our exports, 
and ships came heavily laden, and went away in ballast. The tables 
are now turned, and ships come in ballast to load with our grain, copper 
ores, wines, avooI, hides, horns, quicksilver, borax, and plumbago. In 
the first half of 1867, 1,144 vessels, registering 391,000 tons, entered the 
port of San Francisco, making the annual tonnage of the j^ort about 
800,000. 

§ 30. Population. — The population of the State has gained consider- 
ably during the last five years, but there is no method of ascertaining 
the precise increase. The gain by excess of arrivals over departures 
seawards, was 3,232 in 1853 ; 23,023 in '54 ; 6,300 in '55 ; 5,372 in '56 ; 
6,088 in '57 ; 12,745 in '58 ; 13,402 in '59 ; 16,185 in '60 ; 16,864 in '61 ; 
16,150 in '62 ; 15,882 in '63 ; 9,773 in '64; 4,759 in '66 ; and 8,188 in the 
first half of 1867 : making a total gain of 158,963 in thirteen years and 
a half. In 1865 there was a decrease of 3,780, leaving a net gain of 
155,883. The increase by birth has more than counterbalanced the 
loss by death and by emigration overland to Nevada, Idaho and Mon- 
tana. In section 252 I estimated the population at 400,000 ; and if 
that figure was correct for the 1st July, 1860, and I am inclined to 
think it was, then the present population of California is not far from 
500,000. 

§ 21. Manufactures- — Since 1862, there has been a very rapid 
develoj)ment of the manufacturing industry of the country. Mills and 
factories have been established, and are now in operation, making 
cotton goods, powder, linseed and castor oils, ropes of iron and hemp, 
glass, shot, lead pipe, boots and shoes, and brushes. Additional paper 
and woolen mills have been built. A rolling mill is now in the course 
of erection. These manufactures are nearly all at San Francisco, which 
is likely to become one of the chief manufacturing cities of the Union. 
Large quantities of turpentine and rosin are made in Butte and Yuba 
counties. In 1866, 18 vessels left San Francisco for the codfish banks 
of the North Pacific, and they brought back fish which when dried 



INTllODUCTION. xm 

weighed 900 tons'. This fishery began in 1864. The production of 
soap in San Francisco in 18G6 was 13,000,000 lbs. 

§ 32. San Francisco. — The growth of San Francisco has been 
steady and rapid since 1863. Every year has witnessed great changes 
and vast additions to the number of buildings. The city is now truly 
metropolitan in its appearance. Montgomery street, as a fashionable 
retail street and promenade, has no superior on the continent, save 
Broadway ; and Kearny street, which is now being widened, is rapidly 
advancing to rival Montgomery. There are three hotels, which in 
size and style deserve to take rank with the finest of New York. Five 
street railroads are ready to take passengers to every part of the city. 
One of the largest and finest stone dry-docks of the world is nearly 
completed, at Hunter's Point. The construction of a sea-wall, to pro- 
tect the harbor, has been commenced. Splendid buildings have been 
erected by the Merchants' Exchange Association, the Mercantile 
Library Association, and the Mechanics' Institute. The silver mines 
of Washoe, and the principal quartz mines of California, are mostly 
owned here, and their wealth has contributed to beautify and enrich 
the city. The establishment of a regular line of monthly steamers to 
China and Japan, and the rapid progress of the Pacific Railway, with 
the certainty of its speedy completion, have given confidence, attracted 
population, and induced the investment of capital. Numerous branches 
of manufacturing industry have been established. The commerce of 
the city has continued to advance. The average number of houses 
erected annually, during the last five years, has been about 1,500. It 
may safely be said that no city shows greater signs of prosperity. San 
Francisco, in proportion to her size, is the busiest seaport in the world. 
The annual exports are about $70,000,000, and the imports nearly as 
much ; the manufactures are worth nearly $20,000,000 ; the real estate 
sales amount to about $12,000,000, and the cash value of land, build- 
ings, and movable property, is about $200,000,000, although assessed 
for taxation at only $80,000,000. It sends away about forty tons of 
silver and six tons of gold every month — the former metal in bars fif- 
teen inches long and five inches square, the latter in small bars about 
six inches long, three inches wide and two inches thick. Wagons 
loaded with the precious metals are seen in the streets nearly every 
day. 

Most of the towns of the interior have grown little during the last 
five years. Sacramento suffered so severely from the flood that she 
has not yet recovered. The Central Pacific Railroad, the Sacramento 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

Valley Railroad, and the California Pacific Railroad (from Vallejo) 
centre here ; and the Western Pacific, the building of which has been 
long delayed, is to terminate here. The new State House, to cost 
more than $1,000,000, will not be finished for a year or two. 

§ 23. . Vallejo. — The construction of the California Pacific, and Napa 
Valley Railroads has given a stimulus to Vallejo, which seems to be on 
the point of getting the benefit of the natural advantages of its posi- 
tion. Those advantages could do nothing for it without the assistance 
of railroads ; but now that the roads are to be built, Vallejo is certain 
to be one of the leading towns of the coast. Its exemption from earth- 
quakes, the probability that it will be a brick-built town, the conse- 
quent security against great fires, the freedom from a heavy debt, the 
promise of free wharfage, the certainty that it will be the terminus of 
the railroads from Humboldt Bay and Oregon, and that it will attract 
much of the travel and freight from Sacramento, and the possibility, 
or as many view it, the probability that it will be the main western 
terminus of the Pacific Railroad, are great considerations in its favor. 
The town is growing rapidly now, and land has increased greatly in 
value. 

§ 24. Legal matters. — Congress has granted to the State of Cali- 
fornia Yosemite Valley and the Big Tree Grove of Mariposa ; and has 
passed an act providing for the sale of the quartz mines, on which 
work to the amount of $1,000 has been done ; and fur the sale of the 
agricultural lands in the mineral districts. 

i^ 25. Communicatiohs. — In 1862, the only railway in the State was 
the Sacramento Valley road, 20 miles from Sacramento to Folsom. 
Now we have the Central Pacific completed 95 miles, from Sacramento 
to Cisco ; the San Francisco and San Jose road, 50 miles ; the Western 
Pacific, completed from San Jose to Vallejo's mill, 20 miles ; the Ala- 
meda and Hayw-ard road, 15 miles ; the Oakland and Brooklyn road 4 
miles ; the Napa Valley road, 25 miles ; the Oroville and Marysvile 
road, 25 miles ; the Central California road, from Folsom to Marysville, 
(unfinished) 40 miles; and the California Pacific, from Vallejo to Sac- 
ramento (unfinished), 60 miles ; and the Folsom and Shingle Springs 
road, 40 miles. 

A monthly line of steamers runs to China and Japan ; another to 
Mazatlan ; and a third is to be established to the Hawaiian Islands. 
There are two lines of telegra])h across the continent, placing us in 
instantaneous communication with the Atlantic States and Europe. 

§ 26. Galifornian Books. — Considerable contributions to the litera- 



.TNTE ODOOTTON. XV 

turc of California have been made during the last five years. Among 
the books written in or about California, or published by Californians, 
are : the first volume of the Geology and volume first of the Palcnto- 
logy of the State Geological Survey ; the Reports of the Pacific Rail- 
road Survey ; the History of California, by Franklin Tuthill ; the His- 
tory and Resources of California, (in French) by Ernest Frignet ; the 
Resources, Society and Industry of California (in German) by Karl 
Ruelil ; a School History of (?!alifornia, by Lucia Norman ; the Mineral 
Resources of the Pacific Slope, by J. Ross Browne, U. S. Commissioner 
of Mining Statistics; a Treatise on Mining Law, by Gregory Yale 
(not published yet) ; a Guide Book to Yosemite, by the State Geolo- 
gical Survey (not published yet) ; a collection of Californian Poems, 
ca'led " Outcroppings ;" another styled "Poetry of the Pacific;" a 
volume of poems, by Charles Warren Stoddart ; the Jumping Frog of 
Calaveras, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) ; Phoenixiana, by Lieut. 
Derby ; the Adventures of James Capen Adams, the Grizzly Bear 
Hunter, by Theodore H. Hittell ; and Treatises on Grape Culture and 
Wine-making, by G. A. Haraszthy and T. H. Hyatt, and a Manual of 
Silk Culture, by L, Prevost. 



lE'DEX OF CPIAPTEES. 



Chapters. - Page 

I. Chorograpiiy ] 

II. Climate 19 

III. Geology 47 

IV. Scenery "72 

Y. Botany 91 

VI Zoology 108 

VII. Agriculture 151 

VIII. Mining 2:38 

IX. Other Branches of Industry 304 

X. Commerce 32G 

XL Constitution and Laws 349 

XII. Society 359 

XIII. ToPOGRAPmcAL Names 422 

XIV. The Past and Future Development of the State 431 

APPENDIX. , 

Proportions of the Sexes in California ; 4G2 

Oregon 464 

Vv^asuinqton Territory , 478' 



^ 



Il^DEX OF SECTIOI^S. 



CnOROGRAPHT — ChAP. I. 

3ea Page 

1. General Remarks 1 

2. Coast Mountains 2 

3. Coasts Peaks, and Passes.. 3 

4. Coast Rivers 5 

5. Coast Lakes 6 

6. Capes 7 

7. Islands 1 

8. Bays and Harbors 7 

y. Sacramento Basin 10 

lu. Rivers of the Sacramento 

Basin 12 

11. Tule Laud 13 

12. Sierra iSevada 13 

13. Peaks and Passes of the 

Sierra 14 

14. Lakes of the Sierra 15 

15. IPlateau of the Sierra Ne- 

vada 15 

16. Klamatk Basin 16 

17. UtahBasm 16 

18. Colorado Desert 17 

19. Area of the State 18 

Climate — Chap. II. 

20. General Remarks., .-r 19 

21. Temperature of the Middle 

Coast 20 

22. Clear Days 25 

23. The Sirocco 25 

24. Temperature of the South- 

ern Coast 27 

25. Sacramento Basin 27 

26. Comparative Tables 28 

27. Rain 30 

28. Dryness of Climate 38 

29. Length of Days 39 

30. Thunderstorms 39 

31. Hail 40 

32. Earthquakes 40 

33. Sand-Storms 45 



Geology — Chap. III. 

Sec. Page 

34. General Geological Charac- 

ter 47 

35. Diluvium 48 

36. Gold 50 

37. Auriferous Lodes 51 

38. Placers 52 

39. Mineralogy of Gold 54 

40. Silver 60 

41. Platinum 61 

42. Quicksilver 61 

43. Copper 62 

44. Coal 63 

45. Asphaltum 63 

46. Other Minerals 65 

47. Artesian "Wells 67 

48. Paleontology 69 

49. Relics of Early Humanity. 70 

50. Mineral Springs 70 

61. Cortes Shoal 71 

Scenery — Chap. IV. 

52. Introductory 72 

53. Coast Valleys 72 

54. Tosemite Valley 73 

55. Mammoth Tree Groves. ... 78 

56. Geysers 84 

57. Mud Volcanoes 85 

68. Santa Cruz Ruins 86 

59. Mirage 86 

60. Caves 88 

61. Waterfalls 88 

62. Solfiitaras 89 

63. Mount Shasta 89 

Botany — Chap. V. 

64. Peculiar Fauna and Flora. . 91 
05. Distribution of Plants 92 

66. Superiority of Conifers 93 

67. Redwood 92 



XIV 



INDEX OF SECTIONS. 



Sec. 
68. 
69. 
10. 
71. 
12. 
73. 
74. 
75. 
76. 
77. 
78. 
79. 
80. 
81. 
82. 

83. 
84. 
85. 



86. 

87. 

88. 

89. 

90. 

91. 

92. 

93. 

94. 

95. 

96. 

97. 

98. 

99. 
100. 
101. 
102. 
103. 
104. 
105. 
106. 
107. 
108. 
109. 
110. 
111. 
112. 
113. 
114. 
115. 
116. 



Page 

Pines 93 

Firs 96 

Cedars 96 

Yew and Nutmeg 97 

Laurel 97 

Madrona 98 

Manzanita 98 

Ceanothus 99 

Oaks 99 

Buckeye 101 

Sj^camore 101 

Pitahaya 101 

Yucca 102 

Mezquit 102 

Miscellaneous Trees and 

Shrubs 102 

Poison Oak 103 

Amole 104 

Nutritious Herbage 104 

ZooLoaY — Chap. YI. 

General List 108 

Bears 108 

Panther and Wild-Cat Ill 

"Wolves and Poxes 112 

Badger, etc 114 

The^ Squirrel Family 115 

The Rat Family 120 

The Deer Family 121 

The Hare Family 124 

Aquatic Animals 125 

Yultures 128 

The Eagle Family 129 

Owls 130 

Road-runner 130 

Woodpecker 131 

Huraming-Birds 132 

Flycatchers 133 

Singers. 133 

Scratchers 134 

Waders 137 

Swimmers 137 

Fishes 140 

Salmon 140 

Halibut 141 

Turbot 142 

Sole 142 

Mackerel 142 

Rock-Fish 142 

Sturgeon 143 

Jew-Fish 143 

Sun-Fish 144 



Sec. 

117. 

118. 

119. 

120. 

121. 

122. 

123. 

124. 

125. 

126. 

127. 



128. 
129. 
130. 
131. 
132. 
133. 
134. 
135. 
136. 
137. 
138. 
139. 
140. 
141. 
142. 
143. 
144. 
145. 
146. 
147. 
148. 
149. 
150. 
151. 
152. 
153. 
154. 
155. 
156. 
157. 
158. 
159. 
160. 

161. 
162. 
163. 
164. 
165. 



Page 

Green-Fish 144 

Sea-Bass 144 

Sheepshead 144 

Smelts 144 

Anchovies 145 

Sardine and Herring 145 

Viviparous Fishes 145 

Fresh- Water Fishes 146 

Shell-Fish and Crustaceans . 146 

Reptiles 147 

Honey-Dew Aphis 149 

Agricultuee — Chap. YIL 

General Remarks 151 

Agricultural Districts 153 

Agricultural Produce 160 

Rotation of Crops 161 

Ploughing 162 

Advantages, etc 162 

Fences 163 

Barley 167 

Wheat 170 

Oats 177 

Maize 178 

Potatoes 178 

Hay 179 

Tobacco, Cotton, Rice 181 

Hop 181 

Kitchen Yegetablaa. 182 

Fruit P 184 

Apples 186 

Peaches 188 

Pears 189 

Apricots and Plums 189 

Ohvcs 190 

Oranges 191 

The Grape 193 

Wine-making 201 

Berries 207 

Ornamental Shrubs 209 

Pests of the Farmer 211 

Neat Cattle 212 

Spanish Cattle 212 

Rodeos 214 

Brands 217 

Eaily Maturity of Cahfornian 

Cows 218 

Corral and Reata 219 

Occasional Starvation 219 

Lnported Cattle 220 

Dairies 222 

Spanish Horses. 222 



INDEX OF SECTIOXS, 



XV 



Page 

Horse-break iiig 224 

131ood4iorscs 228 

Mules 229 

Ciimels 229 

Sheep 229 

Swine 233 

Poiiito' 233 

Bees 235 

Silkworms 237 

Mining — Chap. YIIL 



Chief Industry 

Metals obtained 

Gold Mines 

Placer Mines 

Tlie Sluice 

Anialgamatiou 

Cleaning' up 

Riffle-bars , 

Double-Sluice.-^ 

llock-Sluices , 

H3-draulic Miuing 

Blasting 

Tail-Sluice 

Tunnel-Sluice 

Ground-Sluice. . .^, 

Long-Tom 

Cradle 

Pan 

Dry "Washing , 

Dry Digging 

Puddling Box ". . . 

Quicksilver Maehiue 

Tunnel Miuing ,. . 

Shafts 

River Mining 

Beach Mining 

Mining- Ditches 

Prospecting 

Quartz Mining 

Distribution of Gold 

Quartz 

Prospecting Quartz Rock. 

The Divining Rod 

Quarrying Quartz 

Arastra 

Chilean MiU 

Stamps 

Separation 

, Sulphurets 

Chief Quartz Mills 

Silver Mining 



238 

238 

238 

241 

243 

246 

249 

250 

252 

252 

253 

25G 

25G 

257 

257 

257 

258 

262 

264 

204 

265 

265 

266 

267 

268 

269 

270 

271 

272 

273 
275 
277 
277 
278 
280 
280 
281 
284 
284 
285 



Sec. Page 

215. Quicksilver Mining 286 

216. Platinum 287 

217. Del No'-te and Klamath. . . 288 

218. Siskiyou 289 

219. Trini\v and Shasui 289 

220. Plumas and- Sierra 290 

221. Yuba and Butte 294 

222. Nevada and Placer 205 

223. Kl Dorado and Amador 296 

224. Calaveras and Tuohmmo. . . 298 

225. Mono and Mariposa 301 

226 Fresno, etc 303 

Otiieu Br.vnciies of Industry — 
Chap. IX. 

227. High Wages 304 

228. Lumbering ■. 305 

229. Fidiing. .' 313 

230. Hunting 317 

231. House-building 320 

232. Furniture, et^ 323 

Commerce — Chap, X. 

233. General Advantages 326 

234. Tributary Population 327 

235. Imports.' 330 

230. Exports 330 

237. Shipping 332 

238. Unsteadiness of Business. . 333 

239. I.n.- olvencies 334 

240. Interest of Money 335 

241. Speculation in Land 337 

242. Jso Paper Money 337 

243. Opportunities for Invest- 

ment 338 

244. Assurance 347 

Constitution and Laws — Chap. XL 

245. Outlines of Constitution 349 

246. Inferiority of Colored Per- 

sons 350 

247. Law Favorable to Debtors . . 350 

248. Tenure of Land 352 

249. Ownership of Minerals. . . . .354 

250. Titles of Mining-Claims. . . 354 

251. Marriage 358 

Society — Citap. XIL 

252. Population 359 



\vi 



INDEX OF SECTIONS. 



Sm3. Page 

253. Nativities 3G1 

254. Liberal Tone of Society. . . . 3G2 

255. Publicity of Life 364 

256. Amusements 365 

257. Luxurious Living 366 

258. Health 366 

259. Proportion of Sexes- 368 

260. Education 369 

261. Vigilance Committees 3T0 

262. L>Tich Executions 373 

263. Sciuatter League 374 

264. Anti-Chinese Mobs 375 

265. Deeds of Blood 375 

266. Religion 378 

267. Cahtbrnianisms 380 

268. Germans and French 385 

269. Spanish Californians 385 

270. Chinamen 387 

271. Indians 388 

272. Cities and Towns 397 

273. San Francisco 398 

274. Sacramento. 401 

275. Stockton 404 

276. Marysville 405 

277. Nevada 406 

278. Los Angeles 406 

279. Petaluma 408 

280. San Jose 409 

281. Santa Clara 409 

282. Columbia 410 

283. Placerville 410 

284. Yreka 410 



Sec. Page 

285. Yallejo 41 1 

286. Visalia 413 

287. Red Bluff 414 

288. Martinez 414' 

289. Pacheco 414 

290. Suisun 415 

291. Benicia 416 

292. Napa 416 

293. Crescent City 416 

294. Areata 417 

295. Anaheim 417 

296. Monterey, etc 419 

297. Mining Towns 420 

298. General Remarks. 420 

ToPOGR.iPUicAL Names — Chap. XIIL 

299. Introductory 422 

300. Sacred Spanish Names. . . . 422 

301. Profane Spanish Names. . . 424 

302. Indian Names 425 

303. American Names 426 

304. Etymology of California .. . 428 

305. Pronunciation of Names. . . 429 

The Past and Future Development 
OF THE State — Chap. XIY. 

306. Summary, General 431 

307. Sale of Mineral Lands 437 

308. Mexican Grants 45* 



RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

CHOROGRAPHY. 

§ 1. General BemarJcs. — California has a peculiar cho- 
rography. No other country comprises within so small a 
space, such various, so many, and such strongly-marked cho- 
rographical divisions. Mountains the most steep, barren, and 
rugged; valleys the most fertile and beautiful; deserts the 
most sterile ; spacious bays, magnificent rivers, unparalleled 
waterfalls, picturesque lakes, extensive marshes, broad prairies, 
and dense forests — all these are hers. 

In general shape, California is a long parallelogram, extend- 
ing from latitude 32° 45' to 42° north, seven hundred miles in 
length by one hundred and eighty in breadth, the course of 
the longitudinal axis being north-northwest by south-southeast. 
The first topographical division of the state may be into the 
Coast and Interior districts, separated from each other by the 
main ridge of the Coast Mountains, which runs the whole 
length of the state, nearly parallel with the ocean, and about 
fifty miles from it. The Coast district may be subdivided into 
the Coast Mountains and the Coast Valleys. The Interior 
district may be subdivided into the Sierra Nevada^ the Sac- 
1 



2 EE SOURCES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

ramento JBasin^ the Plateau of the Sierra Kevada^ the Kla- 
math JBasin^ the Great Basin of JJtah^ and the Colorado 
Desert. 

§ 2. Coast Mountains. — The Coast range, though not so 
high, or so wide as the Sierra Nevada, may be considered 
the main orographical feature of California, because it alone 
extends through the whole length of the state. The height 
of the range is from tw^o thousand to six thousand feet; 
its width from twenty to forty miles. South of 34° 20' the 
spurs are short and run at riglit angles to the course of the 
main divide, which is the easternmost ridge of the chain; 
nearly all the s^Durs^ v^alleys, and streams, run to the west- 
ward. South of 34° 20' a plain from twenty-five to forty 
miles wide lies between the mountains and the sea ; north of 
that the spurs make up the greater part of the Coast line, 
and, where they enter the ocean, form the headlands and 
capes. The Sunta Susanna spur starts from the main ridge in 
34° 20' and runs west by south, and is separated by the valley 
of the Santa Clara River from the Santa Inez ridge, which 
starts in 34° 30' and runs west ; then continuing our course 
northward, across the Santa Inez valley, we come to the Santa 
Barbara ridge, which starts from the main ridge in 34° 40' and 
runs w^est-northAvest. The Cuyama valley sejDarates the Santa 
Barbara from the Santa Lucia ridge, which branches off at 
35° in a northwestern direction, and forms the southern bound- 
ary of the Salinas valley, w^hose northern boundary is the Gab- 
iian ridge, starting in 36° 10' and running north-northwest; 
which is separated from the Contra Costa ridge, rising in 
3*7° 10' by the Santa Clara valley, and the Contra Costa ridge 
is separated from the main divide by the Amador and San 
Ramon valleys. The Gabilan ridge forms the back-bone of 
Santa Cruz, San Mateo, and San Francisco counties, each of 
which gives its name to that portion within its borders. The 
ridge is cut in two on the southern border of Santa Cruz 
county by the Pajaro River, and the Alameda Creek breaks 
through the Contra Costa ridge. North of the Golden Gate, 



CnOROGRAPIIT. 3 

the Gabilan ridge reap|)ears, ainl is separated by Petalnnia 
valley from the ►Sonoma ridge, ihut by Sonoma valley from the 
Cnrneros ridge, and that by Napa valley from the main Coast 
ridge. Farther north the spurs are so numerous, and con- 
nected so closely together, that they are scarcely distinguished 
by names ; and a large portion of the coast, from the main 
ridge westward, is a mass of mountains. The Coast Moun- 
tains are steep, rocky, rugged, aud brown: north of 38° they 
are covered w ith timber and brush ; south of that the ridges 
nearest the ocean have some timber, those farther inland are 
nearly bare. The main ridge near the head of the Sacramento 
valley is called the Trinity ridge ; near Mount Diablo it is 
called the Diablo ridge, or the Bolbones ridge ; south of 34° 
it is called the San Bernardino ridge, and in one place the 
Ciiyaraaca Mountain. 

§ 3. Coast PeaJcs and Passes. — The principal peaks of the 
main ridge are Mount Linn, in 40° 10'; Mount St. John, in 
39° 25'; Mount Ripley, 7,500 feet high, in 39° 08'; Mount St. 
Helena, 3,700 leet high, in 38° 40'; Mount Diablo, 3,876 feet 
high, in 37° 50'; Pacheco's Peak, 2,700 feet high, in 36° 57'; 
Mount San Bernardino, 8,500 feet high, in 34° 20' ; and Mount 
San Gorgonio, 7,000 feet high, in 33° 48'. - In the Gabilan 
ridge are the following peaks: the Chupadero, in 36° 35'; the 
Gabilan, in 30° 50'; the Loma Prieta, 4,040 feet high, in 37° 
OS' ; and Table Mountain, or Tamalpais, in 37° 53'. The prin- 
cipal passes in the main ridge are south of the outlet of the 
Saci-aniento basin, and are — Livermore's Pass, 086 feet high, 
in 37° 42'; Pacheco Pass, in 37° ; the Pass de los Pobles, in 
35° 20' ; the Cajon de Tenoco, in 34° 40' ; the Pass of San 
Francisquito, 3,437 feet high, in 34° 35'; Williamson's Pass, 
3,164 feet high, in 34° 30'; the Cajon Pass, 4,676 feet high, in 
34° 10'; the San Gorgonio Pass, 2,808 feet high, in 33° 55'; 
and Warner's Pass, 3,780 feet high, in 33° 10'. The Santa Mar- 
garita Pass, with an altitude of 1,350 feet, leads across the 
Santa Lucia ridge, in 35° 20' ; and the San Fernando Pass, 
1,956 feet high, crosses the Santa Susanna ridge, in 34*^' 2C' 



4 EESOTJRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

Haying thus considered the mountains, let us look into the 
valleys of the coast. The flat land west of the San Bernardino 
Mountains, south of 34°, is rather composed of plains than of 
valleys, though watered by the San Gabriel, Los Angeles, 
Santa Ana, and other rivers. There are two of these plains : 
the lower one about two hundred and fifty feet above the sea, 
and skirting the coast ; the other one thousand or twelve hun- 
dred feet high, nearer the mountains. On the lower plain are 
Los Angeles, Anaheim, and San Pedro ; on the upper are San 
Fernando, San Bernardino, Cocomongo, Jurupa, Temescal, 
and Temecula. Northward of 34° we find long, flat, narrow, 
fertile valleys, shut in by steep, rugged hills. We have already 
mentioned the names of many of these valleys, as dividing cer- 
tain ridges of the Coast Mountains from each other. South 
of the Salinas all these valleys open upon the ocean, save the 
Cuyama valley, the river of which runs in a caiion through 
mountains as it approaclies its mouth. The Pajaro Kiver 
breaks throuirh the Gabilan Mountains, and makes a small but 
rich valley. The average width of these coast valleys is five 
miles at the mouth, with a length of from ten to foi'ty miles, 
narrowing to a point near the head in the mountains. The 
Salinas valley, the largest of all the coast valleys, is ninety 
miles long, and from eight to fourteen wide. Three terraces 
are distinctly traceable on each side of the river. The first 
and lowest is about four miles wide, with a sort of a rich, 
sandy loam ; the second rises with an abrupt edge, is eleven 
feet higher, has about two miles of width on each side, and 
has a coarser, poorer soil ; the third terrace is less regular in 
height and width, and has a coarse, gravelly soil, scarcely fit 
for' cultivation. This terraced formation, with its variations 
in richness of soil, is a strongly-marked feature of many valleys 
in the state. Ordinarily, the coast valleys are separated from 
each other by steep, rugged mountain-ridges, but there are 
occasional exceptions. Thus, there is a low plain between 
Russian River and Santa Rosa valley, which opens into Sono- 
ma and Petulama valleys; and again, the Santa Clara and 



CHOKOGRAPHT. 5 

Pajaro valleys are separated from each other by hills not more 
than two hundred and fifty feet high ; and the valleys of the 
Pajaro and the Salinas open into each other. So also the 
divide between San Ramon and Amador valleys is so low as 
to be scarcely noticed by the traveller ; and Amador valley is 
connected, by a level road through a canon, with Sunol valley, 
and that by another canon with the plain at San Jose Mission. 
North of San Francisco Bay, the valleys of Suisan, Yaca, Pu- 
tah, and Cache Creek, lie eastward from Napa valley. The 
valley at the head of Putah Creek is sometimes called Berre- 
yesa valley ; and that at the head of Cache Creek, Clear Lake 
valley. North of Russian River there is little level land, and 
that little is found in Eel River valley, about the shores of 
Humboldt Bay, and about Crescent City. 

§ 4. Coast JRivers. — The rivers of the Coast Mountains have 
necessarily but a short course. Those south of the bay of San 
Francisco are the San Lorenzo, Pajaro, Salinas, Cuyama, Santa 
Inez, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, San Gabriel, Santa Ana, Santa 
Margarita, San Luis Rey, San Diegaito, and San Diego. Some 
of these are large streams in wet w^inters ; but, in the drought 
of autumn, all those south of the Salinas are swallowed up in 
the sands before reaching the ocean. Most of them are con- 
stant streams to within ten or fifteen miles of their mouths. 
The Santa Ana, the largest river on the southern coast, rises 
in Mount San Bernardino, and is in its meanderings nearly one 
hundred miles long, yet only in very wet seasons, once in six 
or eight years, succeeds in getting to the sea. The San Gabriel 
River sinks before reaching Monte, in Los Angeles county, 
and, after passing three miles under ground, rises again. The 
intervening space, where there is no river, is very moist, sandy 
ground, through which the water spreads and soaks. 

W. H. Emory, in his report as member of the Mexican 
Boundary Commission, writes thus : 

"The point at which w\ater ceases to flow is quite variable ; 
its more usual upward limit being marked at or near the pas- 
sage of the stream from the first rocky ranges into the tertiary 



6 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

formation. The point, however, as before stated, is by no 
means a fixed one : thus, during the night it extends farther 
downward than in daytime ; in cloudy weather, for tlie same 
reason, its course is more prolonged than under a clear sky. 
In the stream-beds themselves, however dry, water is gener- 
ally found a short distance below the surface. 

" The descent of these streams in the rainy season may be 
either a gradual process in the progressive saturation of their 
sandy beds, or, the saturation being accomplished by previous 
showers, the irruption may be sudden. A fine example of this 
sudden appearance was observed in the San Diego River, in 
December, 1849 ; when, after a rainy night, by which its sandy 
bed was completely saturated, the upper stream suddenly ap- 
peared in the form of a foaming body of water, moving onward 
at the rate of a fast walk, curling round the river-bends, ab- 
sorbing the pools, and soon fihing its bed with a brimming, 
swift current. An instance of the more gradual descent was 
seen in the following season (December, 1850), when, from 
the absence of local rain, its downward progre^ was slow and 
interrupted." 

The only navigable stream south of San Francisco Bay is 
the Salinas, and that but for small vessels, and near its mouth. 

North of San Francisco the main streams rising in the Coast 
Mountains are the Russian, Eel, Elk, Mad, and Smith Rivers, 
all permanent, but none navigable. 

§ 5. Coast Lakes. — The only large lake in the Coast district 
is Clear Lake, which lies about eighty miles northward from 
San Francisco. It is twenty miles long, and varies in breadth 
from tAvo to ten miles. Surrounded by a small valley of fer- 
tile land, it lies in a deep basin bounded by high mountains, 
with an outlet to the eastward,. where its surplus waters arc 
carried off by Cache Creek to the Sacramento. The water of 
Clear Lake is limpid ; the vegetation on its banks abundant 
and vigorous; the scenery beautiful and romantic. In Ama- 
dor valley, twenty-five miles eastward from Snn Francisco, 
there is a small lake, covering a couple of hundred acres. It 



c n O E O G 11 A P II Y . 7 

lies in the course of tlie Alameda Creek. In the San Francis 
quito Pass, forty-five miles northward from Los Angeles, there 
was a lake called Lake Elizabeth, covering several hundred 
acres, but it has dried up of late. 

These are the only lakes of note in the Coast district. Pre- 
vious to 1860, there was a lake called the "Laguna Sal," six 
miles long and three wide, near Alamo, San Diego county; 
but it entirely dried up in that year. The water had a strong 
taste of alkali and sulphur. According to report, the lake was 
formed about the year 1820. 

§ 6. Capes. — California has two capes : Cape Mendocino, 
in 40° 25'; and Point Conception, in 34° 25'. The former is 
reputed to be the stormiest place on our coast ; the latter is 
the southern limit of the cold fogs and cool summers. 

§ v. Islands. — About forty miles westward from San Fran- 
cisco are the Farallones, seven little islands of bare rocks, the 
largest with an extent of a couple of acres, and of no signifi- 
cance save as a danger to shipping, and as a point where a 
large lighthouse, is maintained. All the other islands of Cah- 
fornia lie between 32° 50' and 34° 10', the farthest one being 
about sixty miles from the mainland. They are named Santa 
Cruz, Santa Catahna, San Clemente, Santa Rosa, San Nicolas, 
Anacapa, and Santa Barbara. They are all hilly, rocky, bar- 
ren, and of little value. Santa Cruz, the largest and best of 
them, has good water and a few trees. It is -twenty-one miles 
long, with an average width of about three miles. All these 
islands appear to be peaks of submerged mountain-ridges. Be- 
tween them and the mainland lies the Santa Barbara channel. 

§ 8. Bays and Ilarhors. — California has four land-locked 
bays — Humboldt, Tomales, San Francisco, and San Diego. 
All of them are comparatively long and narrow, and separated 
from the ocean by narrow peninsulas, their general course 
being parallel with the coast. 

Humboldt Bay is twelve miles long, from two to five miles 
wide, and is separated from the ocean by two tongues of land, 
which are covered by high and dense timber, and offer an 



8 RESOFKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

excellent protection against the strong winds of the coast. 
The mouth of the bay, in latitude 40° 44', is a mile across, but 
has breakers on each side ; and between them is a channel, a 
quarter of a mile wide, with about eighteen feet of water at 
low tide. The greater part of the bay is shallow, but there is 
an abundance of deep water, with good anchorage and perfect 
safety for shipping. The entrance is considered dangerous, 
and a steam-tug escorts nearly all sailing-vessels in and out. 

Tomales Bay is fourteen miles long and two miles wide, 
separated from the ocean by a strip of land a mile and a half 
wide. Its mouth is in 38° 15'. Its course is southeastward, 
and it is open to the northwest winds. The water is about 
twelve feet deep. Tomales Bay is surrounded by hills, and is 
of little value for commerce. 

San Francisco Bay, one of the finest bays in the world for 
the purposes of commerce, is about eight miles wide and fifty 
long, reaching from 37° 10' to 38°. Its entrance, called the 
Golden Gate, or Chrysopylis, is a mile wide, between 37° 
48' and 37° 49'. The peninsulas which separate the bay from 
the ocean are from six to fifteen miles wide. The water on 
the bar is thirty feet deep at low water ; inside much deeper, 
with excellent holding-ground, and room for all the shipping 
of the world. 

Connected with this bay are those of San Pablo and Suisun, 
lying farther inland, on the course of the outlet of the waters 
of the Sacramento basin. San Pablo Bay is nearly round, 
about ten miles in diameter, and hes north of San Francisco 
Bay, with which it is connected by an unnamed strait, about 
three miles wide. Suisun Bay, about four miles wide by eight 
long, lies eastward of San Pablo Bay, with which it is con- 
nected by the strait of Carquinez, which is a mile wide. Both 
bays are deep, but the water in the strait is only sixteen feet 
deep at low tide, and large vessels cannot ascend beyond it. 
Benicia, on the bank of the strait, is the head of navigation, 
and aspires to be the main port of the coast, but in vain. Yal- 
lejo, seven miles from Benicia, still has hopes of that kind. 



C II OROGRAPHY. 9 

The harbor of Vallcjo is excellent, lying between Mare Island 
and the mainland. It is half a mile wide, by three miles long, 
with four fathoms of water at Ioav tide, excellent holding- 
ground, and perfect protection against all winds. 

The bay of San Diego is twelve miles long, from one to two 
miles wide, and crescent-shaped, rmming from the entrance, 
and then turning to the southeastward. A channel, thirty 
feet deep and half a mile wide, extends more than half the 
length of the bay from the entrance. The holding-ground is 
good ; the protection from the winds perfect. There is no 
difficulty in entering at any time, but it is not safe for sailing- 
vessels to go out during gales from the southeast. 

In latitude 34° 38', thirty-five miles southeastward from Los 
Angeles, is a land-locked estuary about eight miles long and 
from half a mile to a mile wide. It has not been surveyed, and 
its value for commerce is not known, but there has been some 
talk lately of using it as a port for some of the adjacent towns. 
The entrance is not more than ten feet deep, and probably not 
so deep as that. 

Of the open harbors, that of Crescent City is the most 
northern, in latitude 41° 44'. It lies on the southern side of a 
rocky point that juts out about half a mile in a westward 
direction, at right angles to the general line of the coast. The 
harbor is small and shallow, with a bottom of sand and rocks. 
Vessels drawing twelve feet of water lie nearly half a mile 
from the shore. The harbor is safe while the wind blows 
from the north and northwest, but very dangerous when it 
blows from the southward. The harbor might be made much 
moi'e safe by a breakwater, at a cost of one or tAvo millions 
of dollars, but the trade of the place would never justify such 
an expenditure. 

Trinidad, in 41° 03', is a very small harbor, open to the 
south, with deep water and excellent holding-ground. 

Bodega Bny, in 38° 18', has nine feet of water, and opens 
to the southward, so that the anchorage is secure only while 
the wind blows from the north. Tomales Bay, just opposite, 



10 EESOITRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

opens into the southern part of Bodega Bay, and is only five 
miles distant from the Bodega anchorage ; and, as one is secure 
against northern and the other against southern winds, vessels 
are safe in all weathers, because tliey can easily run across to 
whichever may prove the sheltered side. 

The bay of Sir Francis Drake, in latitude 38°, is small, open 
to the south, and of no value to commerce. 

Half-Moon Bay is a small roadstead, eighteen miles south of 
the Golden Gate. 

Santa Cruz Harbor, on the northern side of Monterey Bay, 
in 36° 57', is small, has four fathoms of water, a sandy bottom, 
and is open to the south. 

Twelve miles firther south is the mouth of the Sahuas River, 
which is about tAVO hundred yards wide, and has seven feet of 
water. It is entered by small schooners, with the help of a 
steam-tug. 

Eight miles farther to the southward is the harbor of Mon- 
terey, which is large and deep, and has good holding-ground. 
It is open to the north. 

San Simeon Harbor, in 35° 38', has a good anchorage, and 
^s safe while the wind blows from the north, but it offers no 
protection against storms from the southward. The bottom 
is sandy. 

San Luis Obispo Harbor, in 35° 10', has a good anchorage, 
safe at all times, except during storms from the southward. 

Santa Barbara, in 34° 24', has an open harbor, exposed to 
the south winds. The water is deep, and the bottom hard. 

San Pedro, in 33° 43', is open to the south, but probably 
might be made secure by a breakwater, to cost one million of 
dollars. The bottom is hard. 

The difference between extreme high tide and extreme low 
tide is about nine feet at Crescent City, and seven feet at San 
Diego. At San Francisco, the establishment of the port is 
ten hours. 

§ 9. Sacramento JBasin. — The low land of the Sacramento 
basin, bounded on the west by the Coast Mountains and on 



CnOEOGEAPnY. 11 

the east by the Sierra Nevada, which ranges meet both at the 
north and the south, is the heart of the state, four hundred 
miles long by fifty wide, reaching from latitude 35° to 40° 30'. 
It is drained by two rivers : the Sacramento, running from the 
Dorth ; and the San Joaquin, from the south. They meet and 
unite in the centre of the basin, at 38°, and break through the 
Coast range to the Pacific, forming the bays of Suisun, Saa 
Pablo, and San Francisco, on their way. The mountains rise 
steeply from the edge of the valley, which is nearly level, about 
thirty feet above the level of the sea at the junction of the 
rivers, and two hundred feet higher where they issue from the 
mountains. Part of the Sacramento valley shows terraces, the 
farthest from the river being a coarse gravel. The richest soil 
is on the immediate bank. The great body of the valley is 
bare of trees. Its even surface is broken in only one place, 
by the " Buttes," a range of volcanic hills, six miles wide by 
twelve i^ng, with three peaks, about two thousand feet high, 
which rise in lonely abruptness from the middle of the plain, 
in 39° 20'. The general course of the two main rivers of the 
basin lies nearly midway between the two mountain-chains, 
but almost all their tributaries come from the Sierra Nevada, 
which, like the Coast range, has most of its wealth on its western 
slope. In the four hundred miles from Tejon to Shasta there 
are a dozen creeks marked on the map as flowing eastward 
from the Coast range to the San Joaquin and Sacramento ; but 
during the summer, three-fourths of them are swallowed up 
in the sands before reaching their mouths. Not one south of 
38° is a permanent stream. From the Sierra Nevada a num- 
ber of rivers run westward. Beginning at the north, we have 
the Pit, Feather, Yuba, American, Cosumnes, Mokelurane, 
Calaveras, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced, San Joaquin, King's, 
White, and Kern Rivers — all of them considerable streams, 
though some of those in the southern part of the Sacramento 
basin are swallowed up in the sands, in the dry seasons, before 
reaching their mouths. The San Joaquin River does not rise 
at the extreme southern end of the basin, but one hundred 



12 KESOFRCES OP C AL I F O I12TI A. 

miles northward from it, in the SisiTa I^eva'da. After running 
westward to the midd-e of the valley, it turns nortliward. 
From its bend southward, the valley discharges no water to 
the ocean during the summer ; hut in Avet winters there are 
continuous sloughs, or pieces of marsh -like ground, from the 
Tejon to the San Joaquin. In the dry season, no channel is 
visible for the escape of the waters of Tulare and Kern Lakes. 

§ 10. Blvers of the Sacramento Basin. — The rivers flow- 
ing down from the Sierra Nevada are about one hundred and 
twenty miles long on an average, following their courses. The 
upper half of their length is in the mount:iins, v>^here they are 
torrents, falling five thousand feet in fifty miles. Their beds 
are in deep canons ; after reaching the plain their currents are 
gentle, and they meander between low banks, fringed with 
oaks, sycamores, cotton wood, and vrillows. In the south- 
ern part of the Sacramento basin there are several large 
streams, which, soon after issuing from the mountains, divide 
into a number of channels, as do some large rivers which have 
deltas near their entrance to the sea. King's River, which is 
about eighty yards wide where it leaves the mountains, divides 
into seven or eight channels, which all unite again. The Ca- 
huilla or Pipiyuma River, also a large stream, divides into a 
number of channels, v/hich irrigate " the Four-Creek country," 
and render it one of the most fruitful parts of the state. " , 

The Sacramento River is navi liable for steamers drawinjr 
three feet of water, to Sacramento City, and to Red Bhiif for 
boats drawing fifteen inches. The Feather River is navigated 
by steamers drawing fifteen inches, to Marysville, seventy-five 
miles from Sacramento ; and boats have ascended to OroAdlle, 
twenty-five miles farther. Steamers drawing five feet can run 
regularly to Stockton, on the San Joaquin, a distance of one 
Imndred and thirty miles from San Francisco ; and in times of 
high water, a boat drawing about fifteen inches ascends to 
Fresno City, one hundred and fifty miles farther. A number 
of sloughs or tide-water creeks, navigable for small vessels, 
open into the bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun. 



CHOKOGRAPnT. 13 

The most notable. of tliese are the Alviso or Guadalupe slough, 
tit the head of San Francisco Bay ; the San Antonio slough, 
opposite San Francisco city ; tlie Petaluma, Sonoma, and Napa 
sloughs, opening into San Pablo Bay; and Suisun and Pacheco 
sloughs, opening into Suisun Bay. 

§ 11. Tide-Land. — Along the borders of these bays, and of 
the Tulare and Kern Lakes, and of the Sacramento and San 
Joaquin Rivers, there are extensive tracts of swamp-lands, usu- 
ally called " tule-lands," from -the tide., a species of rush which 
grows on them. Nearly all the tule-land west of Sacramento 
and Stockton, to which points the tides extend, are salt marsh- 
es ; but north of Sacramento, and south of Stockton, the tule- 
lands are fresh-water swamps. The extent of this marshy land 
varies in diiferent seasons j but at my estimate, there are eighty 
squarer miles on the borders of San Francisco Bay, eighty on 
San Pablo Bay, sixty on Suisun Bay, two hundred on the Sac- 
ramento River, one hundred on the San Joaquin, two hundred 
on the Tulare Lake, and the slough leading from it, and one 
hundred and twenty south of Tulare Lake — making eight 
hundred and forty square miles in all. 

; § 12, Sierra N'evada. — The Sierra Nevada is four hundred 
and fifty miles long (in California) and seventy wide, with a 
height varying from five thousand to eight thousand feet above 
the sea-level. Nearly its whole width is occupied with its 
western slope, which descends to a level of three hundred feet 
above the ocean ; whereas the slope on the eastern side is only 
five or six miles wide, and terminates in the Great Basin, which 
is itself from four thousand to five thousand feet above the sea. 
Nearly all the snows and rains that visit the Sierra Nevada fall 
on its western slope, which has all the large rivers. These 
rivers run westward, at right angles to the course of the chain, 
and cut it into steep hills and deep ravines, caiions, and chasms. 
The valleys are all small, and it is rare to see a hundred acres 
of level, tillable land, even on the banks of tlie largest moun- 
tain-streams. Tlie greater part of the Sierra Nevada is cov- 
ered with timber. The oak, manzauita, and nut-pine, grow to 



14 EESOFECES OF CALIFOENIA. 

about twenty-five hundred feet above the sea ; and then the 
coniferous trees appear, and are found in dense forests to a 
height of six thousand feet. 

§ 13. Peaks and Passes of the Sierra. — Mount Shasta, 
which rises, in 41° 30', high into the region of perpetual snow, 
the loftiest peak in the state, may be treated as belonging to 
the Sierra Nevada, though in fact it stands midway between 
that range and the Coast Mountains, and is connected by high 
mountain-ridges with both of them. Its height is given by 
Wilkes (Exploring Expedition, vol. v., p. 240) at 14,390 feet. 
Kearly a perpendicular mile of it is always covered with snow, 
and it is visible in every direction for more than a hundred 
miles, presenting to the traveller the most prominent landmark 
of the state. It is of volcanic origin, and still emits sulphure- 
ous vapors from its summit. Several parties have ascended to 
its top. The other most notable peaks in the Sierra Nevada 
are — ^Lassen's Peak, 9,000 feet high, in 40° 22', also of vol- 
canic origin ; the Donnieville Buttes, 8,500 feet high ; Pilot 
Peak, 7,300 feet high, in 39° 50; Castle Peak, 11,000 feet 
high, in 38° 10'; and Mount Breckenridge, 7,500 feet high, in 
35° 20'. Mount Shasta is the only mountain which has snow 
on its southern and southwestern slopes throughout the year ; 
the other-mentioned peaks lose all their snow in September 
and October, except in deep, shady ravines on their northern 
slopes. 

The most notable passes in the Sierra Nevada are the fol- 
lowing: Lassen's, 7,000 feet high, in latitude 41° 50'; Fredo- 
nyer's, 5,667 feet high, in 40° 47'; Beckworth's, in 39° 50'; 
Kenness's, in 39° 30'; Truckey, 5,636 feet high, in 39° 25'; 
Johnson's, 6,752 feet high, in 38° 50'; Carson's, 7,972 feet 
high, in 38° 43'; Sonora, 10,132 feet high, in 38° 15'; Walk- 
er's, 5,302 feet high, in 35° 40'; Hum-pa-ya-mup, 5,356 feet 
high, in 35° 35' ; Tehachepa, 4,020 feet high, in 35° 10' ; Tejon, 
5,285 feet high, in 35° ; and Cajon de las Ilvas, 4,256 feet high, 
in 34° 50'. The last five passes are in the Sierra Nevada, south 
of its bend, where it turns westward to meet the Coast range. 



CHOEOGEAPHT. 15 

The Johnson Pass is used by most of the travel and traffic 
between Sacramento and Utah-; the llenness Pass lies east of 
Marysville, and is used by the people of that neighborhood; 
and the Cajon de las Uvas is used by travellers between the 
San Joaquin valley and the Los Angeles district. 

§ 14. Lakes of the Sierra. — The Sierra Nevada has few 
lakes. The most notable one is Lake Bigler, about twenty 
miles long and ten wide, and six thousand feet above the level 
of the sea, in latitude 39°, and on the eastern border of the 
state. Part of the lake is in Utah. Its waters flow eastward 
into Truckey River. In the eastern part of Nevada county 
there is a group of two dozen lakes, called the Eureka Lakes \ 
the largest are three miles long and a mile wide. 

§ 15. Plateau of the Sierra Nevada. — About latitude 40*^, 
the Sierra Nevada seems to divide or to fork — one branch run- 
ning northward, in the line of the main chain ; the other north- 
westward, to Mount Shasta. Between these two branches, 
and between 40° and 42°, is a high table-land or plateau, about 
one hundred and twenty miles long, and five thousand feet 
above the ocean-level. This plateau is an independent basin, 
and its waters never leave it, but flow into a few lakes, where 
they are swallowed up in the sands. The district bears a 
strong resemblance in many of its features to the Great Basin 
of Utah, with which it should perhaps be classed. The main 
stream is Susan River, which, after a course of forty miles in 
an eastward direction, empties into Honey Lake, which is 
twelve miles long by five wide — or was, for in 1859 the lake 
dried up, and again dried up in 1 860. The lake, when full, 
was shallow, with thick, yellowish water, of a saline taste. 
Northwestward from Honey Lake, and distant thirty miles 
from it, is Eagle Lake, about half the size of the other. The 
land is barren, and the vegetation scanty. Pit River starts in 
the northeastern corner of the state, and breaks through the 
plateau. North of the river are Wrigiit Lake and Rhett Lake, 
within five miles of the Oregon line ; and Goose Lake and Low- 
er Klamath Lake, partly in Oregon and partly in Cahfornia. 



16 EESOUFvCES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

The largest is Goose Lake, ten miles long and five wide. All 
are destitute of large tributaries, sweet water, and valuable 
adjacent land. 

§ 16. Klamath J3asi?i. — North of latitude 41° lies the basin 
of tiie Klamath River, which rises in Oregon, crosses the Cali- 
fornian line about eighty miles from the sea, then turns south- 
westward, and, after a course of about one hundred and fifty 
miles, empties into the Pacific in 41° 33'. The basin of the 
Klamath is very rugged, particularly that part of it within 
forty miles of the ocean. Along the main river there is no 
valley, or bottom-land ; its whole length is between steep hills 
and mountains, and through rocky canons. Its laro-c^ tribu- 
taries, the Trinity and Salmon, run through a country almost 
as rugged as that bordering the main stream. Scott and Shasta 
Rivers, which are the only other notable tributaries of the Kla- 
math — they all flow from the southward — have valleys of 
bottom-land, about five miles wide and forty long. 

§ 17. Vtah J)asi?i. — A prominent feature of the North 
American continent is the Great Basin of Utah, a triangular 
district of country, bounded on the north by the basin of the 
Columbia, on the southeast by the basin of the Colorado, and 
on the southwest by the Sierra Nevada and San Bernardino 
Mountains. This Great Basin — an elevated tract of laud, most 
of which is foiir thousand or five thousand feet above the sea- 
level, mountainous, barren, and. cheerless, Avitli no outlet for 
its waters — extends into Califoriiia, including a district about 
two hundred miles long and one hundred wide, in the south- 
eastern portion of the state. The Californian portion of the 
Great Basin is one of the driest and most sterile parts of the 
earth's surface, cut up by numerous irregular ridges of bare, 
rocky mountains, with intervening valleys of sand and volcanic 
6Coria3, and occasional springs and httle streams which termi- 
nate m lakes, presenting a wide extent of muddy salt water 
after heavy rains, and, in the dry season, wide beds of dried 
and cracked mud, covered with a white alkaline efflorescence. 
The chief stream in the Californian portion of the Great Basin 



CHOROGRAPHT. 17 

is the Mojave, which rises on the northern slope of Mount San 
Bernardino, and, after running about one hundred miles in a 
northeastward direction, sinks in the sand. The Mojave re- 
ceives no tributaries after it leaves the side of Mount San Ber- 
nardino. After sinking, it rises again ; or rather pools of water 
are found in tlie low places of its bed, the water evidently 
soaking through the sand and following the bed of the stream. 
The next stream in importance is Owen's River, which runs 
southward seventy-five miles along the foot of the Sierra Ne- 
vada, and terminates in Owen Lake, which lies in latitude 36° 
25', and is fifteen miles long by nine wide. Northward, one 
hundred miles from Owen Lake, is Mono Lake, eight miles 
long and six wide, sometimes called " the Dead Sea of Califor- 
nia." No fish can live in the water, which is so heavy with 
saline substances, that the human body floats in it very lightly ; 
though it is so strongly alkaline, that it scalds the skin. In 
the midst of the lake is an island, several miles long. While 
the greater part of the Utah Basin is high above the level of 
the sea, there is a portion of it, called " Death Valley," three 
hundred and seventy-seven feet below the sea-level ; and, not- 
withstanding its great depth, it is one of the driest and most 
desolate parts of that basin of deserts. 

§ 18. Colorado Desert. — A district, about seventy miles 
wide by one hundred and forty long, on the southeastern bor- 
der of the state, belongs to the basin of the Colorado River, 
[t is usually called the " Colorado Desert," because of its bar- 
ren, sandy soil, and scanty vegetation. Li some places the 
soil is composed of sand, packed together firmly, with a hard 
and smooth surface, which reflects light like a mirror ; in other 
places are mountains of loose sand, whicli are continually shift- 
ing. In latitude 33° 20', and longitude 115° 50', is a district, 
thirty miles square or more, which is seventy feet below the 
level of the sea. It is supposed that at one time the Gulf of 
California extended several hundred miles farther north than 
it now does ; and that the Colorado Itiver, in long ages, depos- 
ited so much alluvium as to make banks down to the present 



18 EE SOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

head of the gulf, thus cutting off from its connection with the 
ocean that part of the gulf now dry. The evaporation in this 
desert far exceeds the fall of rain ; so it was not long before 
this lake was dried up. When the Colorado River is very 
high, it breaks over its banks about forty miles southward 
from Fort Yuma, and sends a large stream, called New River, 
northwestward a distance of a hundred miles or more, to the 
lowest portion of the desert. A proposition has been made 
to cut a canal from the river to the low ground ; so that the 
land, which is said to be of excellent quality, might be irri- 
gated and cultivated : but no accurate survey has yet been 
made of a route for the canal, or of the district to be irrigated. 
The Colorado River is navigable to Fort Yuma, a distance of 
seventy-five miles from its mouth. The average depth is ten 
feet, but there are shoals wiiich have not more than two feet 
at low water ; the tide rises ten feet. The channel is crooked, 
and the bottom is of sand, which is constantly changing posi- 
tion. The banks of the river are low and muddy. The aver- 
age current runs at the rate of two and a half miles per hour. 
The river is high in July, when the snows of the Rocky Moun- 
tains (in latitude 38°-44°) melt, and then the flood covers the 
low bottom-land along the river-banks. 

§ 19. Area of the State. — The total area of the state amounts 
to about 155,000 square miles, of which there are, at my esti- 
mate, 42,000 in the mountains and valleys of the coast, 40,000 
in tlio Sierra Nevada and its plateau, 20,000 in the low land 
of the Sacramento Basin, 30,000 in the Great Basin of Utah, 
15,000 in tlie Colorado Desert, and 8,000 ia the Klamatli Basin. 
In the 42,000 square miles of the coast slope, 16,000 may be 
l>\it down as valley and 26,000 as mountain. 



CLIMATE. 19 



CHAPTER II. 
CLIMATE. 

§ 20. General Remarlcs. — The climate of California is un- 
like that of every other country, and particularly dissimilar to 
that of the American states east of the Rocky Mountains. In 
general character it resembles tlfe climate of western Europe. 
Its chief peculiarities, as distinguished from the Eastern states, 
are, that the winters are warmer; the summers — especially at 
niglit — cooler ; the changes from heat to cold not so great nor 
so frequent ; the quantity of rain less, and confined principally 
to the winter and spring months ; the atmosphere drier ; the 
cloudy days fewer ; thunder, hghtning, hail, snow and ice, and 
the aurora borealis, rarer; the winds more regular — bio win f>" 
from the north for fair weather, and from the south for storms ; 
and earthquakes more frequent. 

The state reaches through nine and a quarter degrees of lati- 
tude, from 32° 45' to 42°, San Diego being as fir south as 
Charleston, and Crescent City as far north as Providence. 
Much of the Golden state has the winter of South Carolina, 
and the summer of Rhode Island. The orange, the lemon, the 
oUve, the fig, the pomegranate, the vine, the peach, the apple, 
wheat, and barley, all find most congenial climes in Califor 
nia. 

Tiie state, indeed, has many climates : one for the western 
slope of the Coast range between Point Conception and Cape 
Mendocino ; another for the low land of the Sacramento Basin ; 



20 EESOFRCKS OB" CALIFORNIA. 

another for the Sierra Nevada and Klamath Basin ; another for 
the Great Basin of Utah ; another for the coast south of Point 
Conception ; and still another for the Colorado Desert. 

The causes of these peculiarities of climate are chiefly to be 
found in the position of the country — a narrow strip on the 
western side of the continent, bounded on the east by a high 
ranoje of mountains that shuts the coast off from all the influ- 
ences of the interior ; bordering on the wide Pacific Ocean, 
washed by a warm current flowing across from the China Sea ; 
with a shore line that runs nearly north and south, and is ex- 
posed in all its length to the strong winds constantly blowing 
southeastward over the ocean. 

§ 21. Temperature of the Middle Coast. — On the coast, 
between latitudes 35° and 40°, there is little difference in the 
temperatures of winter and summer. San Francisco is in the 
same latitude with Washington and St. Louis, but know^s nei- 
ther the cold wmters nor the hot summers which afflict those 
places. Ice is rarely formed in the Californian metropolis, and 
never more than an inch in thickness ; and the thermometer 
never stays at the freezing point twenty-four consecutive hours. 
The lowest point which the thermometer has ever reached in 
San Francisco, since observations have been taken, was 22° 
Fahrenheit in January, 1862 ; and previous to that time it had 
never fallen below 25° ; while in St. Louis it goes down to 12° 
every winter, and remains near that figure for many consecu- 
tive days. The lowest figures which the mercury reached in 
the daytime at San Francisco, in January of the years 1851, 
'52, '53, '54, and '55, were respectively 30°, 35°, 41°, 25°, and 
33°, showing that in three Januaries out of five no ice at all 
was formed in the daytime ; and when the thermometer fell to 
25° in 1854, the weather was declared to be colder than it had 
ever been before, " within the memory of the oldest inhabit- 
ant." During nine years' residence in the city, I never have 
seen ice formed here half an inch thick, and never saw the 
slightest film of it formed on water in a house. Snow some- 
tiu)es falls, but I have never seen thie streets dressed in white. 



CLIiTATE. 2l 

In St. Louis, the winter months rarely have a day which is 
really comfortable in the open air; while at least half the sea- 
son is so in San Francisco, the sky being clear, the sun warm, 
and the breezes gentle, so that the weather bears a strong re- 
semblance in temperature to the Indi.in summer in the upper 
Mississippi basin. Our coldest winter days, at noon, are as 
warm as the warmest in Philadelphia. 

On the other hand, the summers are cool or cold. In No- 
vember, 1854, the lowest figure reached by the thermometer 
in San Francisco, was 47°, while in July of the same year it 
was at 46° — showing that at no time in the former month was it 
so cold as at one time in the latter. The mean temperature of 
July is 57°, twenty-one degrees lower than in Washington 
city. There are not more than a dozen days in the year when 
the thermometer rises above 80° — at which figure heat first 
begins to be oppressive — while in St. Louis and at Washing- 
ton there are in every year from sixty to ninety days that see 
that height. No matter how warm the day at noon, the even- 
ings and mornings are always cool, and blankets are necessary 
— at least a pair of them — as a bed-covering, every night. 

Although the mean temperature of summer differs little from 
that of winter, yet there are sometimes very warm days, which 
may be succeeded immediately by very cool nights. San Fran- 
cisco never sees more than three hot days in succession. When 
the sun has had an opportunity to rage for so long a period, 
the air in the interior of the state becomes so hot, that it rises 
rapidly ; and the ocean-winds, which must rush to supply the 
place, never fail to bring cool weather to the vicinity of the 
Golden Gate. Thus the mercury has risen (and that was its 
highest) to 97°, and it often falls in July to 46°; and such a 
change of fifty degrees might occur within twelve hours. The 
average range of the thermometer in July and August is about 
twenty degrees — from 50° to 70°. Yet, as the mornings and 
evenings are invariably cool, and the noons are not always 
warm, " summer clothing" is seldom worn by men, and never 
for twelve consecutive hours. The common custom is, to wear 



22 RESOTJllCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

woollen coats and trousers of the same thickness in summer 
and winter. The persons who visit San Francisco during the 
summer, from the interior of the state, where the climate from 
May to October is much warmer, and where summer clothes 
are worn, are much bothered at having to bring their winter 
■clothes with them. The editor of a Stockton paper, disgusted 
with the climate of the metropolis in July, expressed himself 
somewhat after this manner: "You go out in the morning 
shivering, notwithstanding the fact that you are dressed in 
heavy woollen clothing and under-clothing, and have a thick 
overcoat buttoned up to your throat. At 8.30 you unbutton 
two of the upper buttons ; at 9 you unbutton the coat all the 
way down; at 9.30 you take it off; at 10 you take off your 
woollen coat, and put on a sum^mer coat; at 11 you take off all 
your woollen and put on light summer clothing : at 4 it begins 
to grow cool, and you to put on your woollen again ; and by 
7 o'clock your overcoat is buttoned to the chin, and you shiver 
until bedtime." 

The coolness of the summer is caused by the winds and 
fogs which blow in from the ocean, whose temperature at the 
Farallones never varies more than a degree or two from 42°. 
A strong wind blows along the coast from the north and north- 
west during almost the whole year ; and it blows strongly upon 
the land for several hours after eleven o'clock in the morning 
and after five in the evening,, and not unfrequently it continues 
the whole twenty-four hours. The common prevalence of this 
wind during the afternoon renders the mornings the pleasaut- 
est part of the summer weather in San Francisco ; and the more 
delicate and fashionable ladies habitually make their calls and 
allow their children to go into the street only before mid-day. In 
June, July, and August, heavy, wet, cold mists come up from 
the sea at six in the evening, and continue until eight or nine 
in the morning. In the winter, fogs are rarer, and do not 
commence so early in the evernngs, and the winds are not so 
Bti-ong ; so that, in these respects, the winter is the j^leasanter 
season of the year. 



CLIMATE. 23 

Dr. II. Gibbons, speaking of tlie mists and fogs at San Fran- 
cisco, says : 

"It is curious to observe the conflict between tlie absorbing: 
power of the air and the supplying power of the ocean, in re- 
gard to moisture. Toward noon, when the -wind rises, huge 
columns of mist may be seen piled along the coast, three or 
four miles west of the city, and pouring in like a deluge upon 
the land. But the air of tlie land, which is always thirsty, 
drinks it up with astonishing avidity; so that the impending 
wave, though in a current moving from thirty to fifty miles an 
liour, makes slow progress. By the middle of the afternoon 
it is within a mile or two of the city ; and there it stands, like 
a solid mass of water several hundred feet in depth, rolling and 
tumbling toward you (not without grandeur and majesty), and 
threatening to overwhelm you in a few seconds. You await 
its coming, but it comes not ; it even recedes, to return and 
recede again, ^ot until the sun has lost his calorific power 
does the atmosphere reach the point of saturation ; and then, 
toward sunset or later, every thing is submerged by the va- 
pory flood. In the course of the evening the wind falls. Dur- 
ing the night the mist is gradually dissolved and disappears 
from the lower stratum of air, while it forms a heavy cloud 
above. About the middle of the forenoon the cloud is dis- 
persed by the rays of the sun. The dispersion is rapid, the 
sky often becoming entirely clear in less than half an hour. 

" If it be possible to distinguish between fog and mist — re- 
garding the former as impalpable, and the latter as composed 
of palpable particles of moisture — I may remark that mist be- 
longs only to the summer and fog to the winter climate of San 
Francisco. There is no mist in winter, and no fog in summer. 
At all seasons the drying tendency of the atmosphere is ob- 
servable. You notice none of those phenomena which in other 
climates depend on an excess of water in the air, and on sud- 
den changes of temperature. The moisture does not condense 
on your windows, nor on the phistered walls ; salt does not 
liquify, nor even exhibit the slightest dampness ; and the house- 



24 EESOUECES OP CALIFOKXIA. 

wife has no trouble in drying her clothes, provided it should 
not rain. In fact, the atmosphere of San Francisco, in spite of 
sea winds and mists, is a dry atmosphere." 

The mean temperatures of spring, summer, autumn, and win- 
ter, are 54°, 57°, 56°, and 50° respectively, showing a difference 
of only seven degrees between the average of winter and sum- 
mer ; whereas a similar comparison in the climate of New York 
city shows a difference of thirty-nine degrees. There is a range 
of two degrees more in San Francisco by taking the months 
separately — January, the coldest month, having a mean tem- 
perature of 49°, and September, the warmest, a mean of 58°. 
October is as warm as July, and in some years it has been 
warmer. The mean of the whole year is 54°, a temperature 
that requires heavy woollen clothing for comfort. For vigor- 
ous, industrious men, the climate of San Francisco is the health- 
iest and most agreeable in the world. I prefer it to all others. 
But, to enjoy it, a man should have warm blood, full veins, 
and active habits ; if he is weak or idle, he will find it too cool 
for him. It is a climate that allows a person to be out in the 
open air all the time ; no hour is lost because of either exces- 
sive heat or excessive cold. Women do not like the climate 
so well as men ; it is too cool for their less vigorous constitu- 
tions and sedentary habits. 

San Francisco does not lie immediately on the ocean, but 
only six miles from it, and where there is a great gap to let in 
the winds and fogs. The nearer the Pacific, the denser and 
more frequent the fogs, the stronger the winds, the warmer 
the winters, and the cooler the summers. The great ocean is 
a powerful equalizer of climate : as you advance into the inte- 
rior, the range of heat and cold becomes greater. In the coast 
valleys you can choose your distance. San Rafael is ten miles 
from the Pacific, Petaluma twenty, Sonoma thirty, Napa thir- 
ty-five, Suisun forty-five, and Vaca valley fifty. Sonoma valley 
has a delightful climate, free I'rom fogs and cold winds, and 
yet blessed with a sea-breeze which tempers the heat of every 
summer day to the precise degree necjfcsary to the peifect 



CLIMATE. 25 

happiness of a man who wishes to take life easy, and do noth- 
ing. Indeed, all the valleys embosomed in the Coast Moun- 
tains, from Humboldt Bay to Santa Barbara, have beautiful 
climes, which will compare favorably, I think, with the best 
of Italy. The summer days are always warm, rarely hot ; the 
mornings and evenings are clear and pleasant ; in winter, ice 
never forms over two inches in thickness, and if snow falls, it 
never lies twenty-four hours. 

§ 22. Clear Days. — On an average, there are two hundred 
and twenty perfectly clear days in a year, without a cloud ; 
eighty five days wherein clouds are seen, though in many of 
them the sun is visible ; and sixty rainy. Italy cannot surpass 
that. Xew York has scarcely half so many perfectly clear 
days. From the first of April till the first of November, there 
are in ordinary seasons fifteen cloudy days ; and from the first 
of November till the first of April, half the days are clear. It 
often happens that weeks upon weeks in winter, and months 
upon months in summer, pass vrithout a cloud ; that is, at a 
distance of thirty miles from the ocean. Near the shore, coast- 
clouds are frequently blown up from, the sea, but they disap- 
pear after ten o'clock in the mornmg. 

§ 23. The Sirocco. — One case, and only one, is on record, 
of a sirocco, or burning-hot w^ind, visiting the coast. This one 
was felt at the town of Santa Barbara, in latitude 34° 20', on 
the ocean-shore, on the l7th of June, 1859. The Gcvzette news- 
paper of that place, published six days afterward, said: 

"Friday, 17th June, will be long remembered by the inhab- 
itants of Santa Barbara, from the burning, blasting heat expe- 
rienced that day, and the effects thereof. Indeed, it is said 
that, for the space of thirty years, nothing in comparison has 
been felt in this county, and, we doubt, in any other. The 
sun rose like a ball of firo on that day ; but though quite warm, 
no inconvenience was caused thereby until two o'clock, p. m., 
when suddenly a blast of heated air swept through our streets, 
followed quickly by others ; and shortly afterward the atmo- 
sphere became so intensely heated, that no human being could 



26 eesoukCes of California. 

withstand its force : all sought their dwellings, and had to shut 
doors and windows, and remain for hours confined to their 
houses. The efiect of such intense and unparalleled heat was 
demonstrated by the death of calves, rabbits, birds, etc. The 
trees were all blasted ; and the fruit, such as pears and apples, 
literally roasted on the trees ere they fell to the ground, and 
the same as if they had been cast on live coals. But, strange to 
say, they were only burned on one side — the direction whence 
came the wind. All khids of metal became so heated, that for 
hours nothing of the kind could be touched with the naked 
hands. The thermometer rose to nearly fever-heat — in the 
shade. Near an open door, and during the prevalence of this 
properly-calied sirocco, the streets Avere filled with impene- 
trable clouds of fine dust, or pulverized clay. Speculation has 
been rife since to ascertain the cause of sucb a terrible phe- 
nomenon ; but, though we have heard of many plausible theo- 
ries thereon, we have not been fully convinced yet : however 
that might be, we see its terrible efiects all around us, in 
blighted trees, ruined gardens, blasted fruit, and almost a gen- 
eral destruction of the vegetable kingdom here. We hope we 
will never see the like again." 

A correspondent of a San Francisco paper wrote thus : " At 
one o'clock in the afternoon of the 17th instant, a burning wind 
came upon us from the northwest, and smote us with terror. 
At two o'clock, the thermometer exposed to this wind rose to 
133° of Fahrenheit ; at five o'clock, it had fallen to 122° ; and 
at seven o'clock, it stood at 77°, where it had been in the 
morning. During the whole time of this visitation, every oi>e 
stayed in the house, taking good care to keep doors and win- 
dows closed. A fisherman who was out at sea came back with 
his arms all blistered. Many calves, rabbits, and birds, died 
of suffocation. The greatest losses are among the vegetables. 
The fruit-trees are all burned ; the pears and apples have been 
literally cooked." 

No similar case is mentioned in history or tradition, nor is 
there any explanation of this. 



CLIMATE. 2f 

§ 24. Temperature of the Southern Coast. — The high moun- 
tain-spur which projects into the ocean at Point Conception 
seems to protect the coast south of it from the fogs, which are 
much rarer and w^armer at Los Angeles than at San Francisco. 
But though the former is in latitude 34°, it is at times as cold in 
winter as the latter (in 37° 48'), because it is flirther from the 
ocean, and is in sight of Mount San Bernardino and other high 
mountains, some of which wear snow-caps during a large part 
of the year. In summer, however, it is much warmer, even 
oppressively hot. The nights are sometimes so warm, that a 
sheet is as much covering as is necessary for comfort; but 
blankets are usually required. 

The coast north of latitude 40° is much colder and cloudier 
in summer, and has more rain than any other part of the state. 

§ 25. Sacramento Sasin. — The climate of the Sacramento 
Basin differs from that of San Francisco in having no fogs, faint 
sea-breezes, winters four degrees colder, and summers from six- 
teen to twenty degrees warmer. The greater heat of summer is 
owing to the want of ocean winds and fogs ; the greater cold of 
winter is caused by the distance from the Pacific, and the prox- 
imity of the snow-covered Sierra Nevada. While at San Fran- 
cisco the thermometer usually stands at 70° at mid-day, it is 
at 86° in Sacramento city at the same moment ; and these six- 
teen degrees make a vast difference, for they change comfort 
into oppression. And Sacramento city, lying near the great 
gap in the Coast Mountains, is cooler in summer than either 
end of the basin ; for the upper portions of both the Sacra- 
mento and San Joaquin valleys, nearly every summer, see days 
when the thermometer stands at over 100° in the shade. The 
county assessor of Fresno county stated, in his annual report 
for 1857, that the mean temperature at IMillerton during the 
three summer months was 106°. The Stockton Argus spoke 
thus of a great heat that was felt in Stanislaus county on the 
23d of June, 1859: 

"The thermometer was 113° in the shade. The wind was 
avoided, as it was heated so, that it felt as if actually burning 



28 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

the flesh — as if rushing from a hot oveu. In one team of ten 
horses, three fell in the road, from beat ; two died, but the 
other recovered by pouring sweet oil in its throat. The ani- 
mal's throat was closed so that it could not drink, when the 
oil was used so as to soften the throat and open it, that it 
could sw^allow water, when it recovered. The two that died 
expired before such aid could be used with them. At Burton's 
public house, at Loving's Ferry, birds flew into the bar-room 
to the pitcher to get water, so tame were they made by the 
thirst caused by extreme heat. Birds were seen to fall dead 
off the limbs of trees in the middle of the day, from the heat, 
as if they were shot. The wind was of that burning heat never 
before witnessed by the settlers there since their arrival in the 
state." 

In the Sierra Nevada, the heat of the summer at mid-day 
is about the same as in the Sacramento valley ; but the winter 
is cold, and the amount of rain greater in proportion to the 
altitude above the sea. In places three thousand feet above 
the ocean-level, ice forms five and six inches thick, and snow 
deep enough for sleighing lies several weeks nearly every win- 
ter. In towns six thousand feet above the sea, the snow falls 
from five to ten feet deep, and covers the ground four or fivf 
months in the year. 

In the Great Basin, the winters are cold and the summer 
days very hot ; but there too the nights are always cool. 

The Colorado Desert has exceedingly hot summer days and 
warm winters, but occasional frosts in the spring and fall as 
well as in the winter. 

§ 26. Gomparative Tables. — The following table shows the 
mean temperature of every month, and the average of the 
whole year, at San Francisco, Benicia, Sacramento, Fort Mil- 
ler, Fort Reading, Fort Yunin,' and also at various places in 
other parts of the world, some of them (such as Funchal, Na- 
ples, Honolulu, and Mexico) being famed for the beauty and 
equability of their climates. In addition to the temperature, 
the latitude of each place is given ; 



CLIMATE. 



29 



PLACES. 


40 


51 


52 


> 
13. 

55 


1— 1 
55 


56 


57 


> 
57 


58 


O 
o 

57 


o 
54 


o 
p 

51 


AVER- 
AGE. 


LATITinOE. 


Sail Francisco . . . 


54 


37° 


48' 


Beuicia 


'47 


52 


53 


57 


59 


67 


67 


6U^ 


G4 


G2 


54 


47 


58 


58 


03 


Sacramento 


45 


48 


51 


59 


67,71 


73 


73 


66 


64 


52 


45 


59 


'38 


34 


Foit» Miller 


47- 


53 


5G 


62 


68 83 


90 


83 


76, 


67 


55 


48 


66 


37 




Fort Reading . . . 


44 


40 


54 


59 


65,77 


82 


79 


71 


62 


52 


44 


62 


40 


28 


Fort Yuma 


56 


58 


G6 


73 


76 87 


92 


90 


86 


76 


64 


55 


73 


32 


43 


New York 


31 


30 


38 


47 


57 67 


73 


72 


66 


55 


45 


34 


51 


40 


37 


New Orleans .... 


55 


58 


G4 


70 


75,81 


82 


82 


78 


70 


62 


55 


69 


29 


57 


Steilacoom 


:5S 

37 
52 


40 
40 
54 


42 
42 
61 


48 
46 
63 


55 60 
53 '58 

gg;65 


64 
62 

65 


62 
64 


57 
57 
64 


52 
50 
60 


45 
44 
55 


39 
40 
52 


50 
49 
60 


47 
51 
19 


10 
29 
26 


London 


Cit}' of Mexico . . . 


Naples 


4G 


47 


51 


56 


64 


70 


76 


76 


G9 


61 


53 


49 


60 


40 


52 


Fuuchal 


GO 


GO 


62 


63 


64 


67 


70 


72 


72 


67 


G4 


60 


65 


32 


38 


Honolulu 


71 


72 


72 


74 


76 


77 


78 


79 


78 


76 


74 


73 


75 


21 


\^ 




47 


53 


60 


54 


66 


71 


77 


72 


72 


GO 


58 


47 


62 


31 


47 


Canton 


52 


55 


62 


70 


77 


81 


83 


82 


80 


73 


65 


57 


69 


23 


08 


Nagasaki 


43 


44 


50 


61 


69 


77 


80 


83 


78 


66 


53 


47 


62 


32 


45 



3 



By the study of this table, we can form an excellent idea of 
the temperature of the different portions of the state, as com- 
pared with each other, and as compared with those of some 
other countries. So far as we know, San Francisco has the 
most equable and the mildest climate in the Avorld. Within 
the tropics there are, no doubt, many places which have a 
more equable temperature, but it is the equabihty of intense 
heat. 

Funchal, on the island of Madeira, has probably the mildest 
climate in the world, but in equability it is inferior to San 
Francisco. Benicia is thirty miles from the ocean, and has a 
warmer summer and a colder winter than the immediate coast. 
Sacramento has the climate of Naples and Jerusalem through- 
out the year : its summer being the same as that of New York, 
hat its winter fourteen degi-ees warmer. Fort Reading and 
Nagasaki have nearly the same figures. Fort Yuma, in the 
Colorado Desert, in latitude 32° 45', is warmer than New Or- 
leans, in 29° 57'. 

A railroad, one hundred and eighty miles long, running 
eastward from Oakland, a suburb of San Francisco, passing 



30 KESOUKCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

through Stockton and Sonora, near the Mammoth Grove of "j 
Mariposa and the Yos emit e valley, to the summit of the Sierra' 
Nevada, would enable the people near the line to place them- 
selves, every summer's day, in any tolerable degree of heat 
or cold. 

Fourteen miles west of Oakland is the ocean-beach, where 
a chilling wind blows without ceasing. Going from the coast, 
the traveller Atould gradually get into a warmer clime, until, 
in Stockton, he would find the thermometer indicating 100°, 
most of the summer noons ; and proceeding up the sides of the 
Sierra, he would gradually rise into greater cold, to the eter- 
nal frost on the summit. A branch road running south to Fort 
Yuma would enable the-traveller to enjoy almost as great a 
variety of temperature in the winter. 

§ 27. Main. — ISTearly all the rain in California falls between 
the first of November and the first of June — the j^eriod called 
the " rainy season," as contradistinguished from the " dry sea- 
son," which occupies the remainder of the year. Those names, 
however, when applied to any special season, do not signify 
an unchangeable number of months, but rather the term dur- 
ing which the rain falls or the dry weather lasts. Thus, we 
say that the rainy season of 1858-59 began in October, be- 
cause in that month the first heavy rains fell ; the rainy season 
of 1855-'56 did not begin until December; the dry season of 
1857 began in March; and so forth. The rainy season is s(u 
called, not because the rain falls then continuously, but becaiis^ffl 
it does not fall at any other time. There are occasional show-' 
ers in June, July, August, and September, but they are rare: 
and light. • 

The following table gives the average amount of rain, in 
inches, which falls during the four seasons of spring, summer, 
autumn, and winter, at various places in California, as com- 
pared with the amount which falls in other places in the 
"United States 



CLIMATE. 



31 



PLACES. 

San Francisco . . . 

Sacramento 

Fort Reading. . , . 
Fort Humboldt . . 

Fort Miller 

Fort Yuma 

San Diego 

Astoria 

Portland, Maine . . 
New York city. . 
New Orleans. . . . 

St. Louis 

Rome 

Paris 

Liverpool 



SPRING. 


SUMMER. 


ATITUMN. 


WINTER. 


TEAR. 


6.64 


0.13 


3.31 


11.33 


21.41 


7.01 


0.00 


2.61 


12.11 


21.73 


11.30 


0.39 


4.89 


12.44 


29.02 


13.51 


1.18 


4.87 


15.03 


34.56 


9.57 


0.02 


2.80 


9.79 


22.18 


0.27 


1.30 


0.86 


0.72 


3.15 


2.74 


0.55 


1.24 


5.90 


10.43 


16.43 


4.00 


21.77 


44.15 


86.35 


12.11 


10.28 


11.93 


10.93 


45.25 


11.69 


11.64 


9.93 


10.39 


43 . 65 


11.29 


17.28 


9.62 


12.71 


60.90 


12.86 


14.09 


8.71 


6.29 


41.95 


7.27 


3.39 


10.89 


9.31 


30.86 


5.53 


5.92 


6.51 


4.68 


22.64 


6.19 


9.78 


10.81 


7.32 


34.10 



From this table it appears that the amount of rain is about 
one-half as great in San Francisco as in any of the American 
states east of the Mississippi. Here, all the rain falls in the 
winter and spring ; there, the amounts are nearly the same in 
the four seasons. They have as much rain in their summer 
and autumn as we in our winter and spring. We have less 
rain than Liverpool and Rome, and about the same amount 
with Paris. San Diego has only one-half and Fort Yuma one- 
seventh the rain-fall of San Francisco, which latter place is 
surpassed nearly seventy-five per cent, by Humboldt Bay. At 
Fort Yuma, and all through the Colorado Desert, the rain 
omes not in the rainy season of California, but chiefly in the 
ummer and fall, synchronous with the wet season of North- 
.vestern Mexico. Unfortunately, we have no statistics of the 
rain-fall in the Sierra Nevada, or in the Great Basm, within 
the limits of this state. 

The least rain in San Francisco, during any rainy season 
since 1852, has been 19 inches; the largest amount, 24 inches. 
I obtain the following figures from statistics kei)t in this city 
by Mr. Thomas Tennant, from 1850 to the present time: 

The average rain-fall in January is 3.52 inches. The most 
notable departures from that average were in 1858, Avhen there 



32 RESOUllCES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

were 9.40; in '59, only 1.28; in '60, 1.64; and in '62, 24.36 
inches. 

The average of February is 3.67 inches; bnt in 185^3, the fall 
was 1.42; in '54, 8.04; m '56, 0.50; in '57, 8.59; in '58, 1.83; 
in '59, 6.32 ; hi '60, 1.60 ; in '61, 3.72 ; and in '62, 7.53 niches. 
This shows a remarkable alternation. In only one year did 
the amount approach the average ; in the others (excluding 
the last), the rains were very heavy and very light by turns. 
A dry February, after a wet December and January, is one of 
the pleasantest months of the year in California. 

The average rain-fall of March is 3.38 : in 1857, the amount 
was 1.62 ; in '58, 5.55. 

The average of April is 2.63: in 1855, the amount was 5 
inches; in '57, nothing; in '58, 1.35 ; and in '59, 0.27. 

The average of May is 0.63 : in 1857, the amount was 0.05 ; 
and in '60, 2.86. 

The average of June is 0.08 ; of July, 0.02 ; of August, 0.03 ; 
and of September, 0.15. There are no large rains recorded in 
any of these months. 

The average of October is 0.66 : but in 1^54, the* amount was 
2.41 ; and in '58, 2.74; in -do, nothing. 

The average of Xovember is 2.50: in 1854, the amount was 
0.34; in '59, 7.28; and in '60, 0.58. 

The average of December is 4.49 : in 1854, the amount was 
0.81 ; in '57, 8.08 ; in '59, 1.57 ; in '60, 6.16 ; and m '62, 9.54. 

The rainy season of 1854-55 did not commence, it may be 
said, until January; for although there were 2.41 inches of 
rain in October, yet the amount was only 0.34 in November, 
and 0.81 in December: so that the moisture from the October 
rain did no good to either the farmer or the miner, having 
been completely dried out from the earth before the rains of 
January came. 

Let us now examine the rainy seasons since 1350, and see 
in what months more than three inches of rain fell. In 1851- 
'52, these months were December and March ; in '52—53, De- 
cember, January, and March ; in '53-54, January, February, 



CLIMATE. 33 

March, and April; in '54-55, Janunry, February, March, and 
iVpril; in '55-'53, December and January; in '56-57, De- 
cember and February; in 'SV-'SS, December, January, and 
March ; in '58-59, December, February, and JMarch ; in '59- 
'60, November, March, and April; in '60-61, December and 
February; and in '61-'62, from November to February, in- 
clusive. 

The rain of California usually comes with gentleness, and 
falls perpendicularly. The coast, above Humboldt Bay, re- 
ceives a greater amount of rain than any other part of the 
immediate shore ; and in this respect it resembles the humid 
clime of Western Oregon. At Fort Yuma the amount of rain 
is from one-fiftli to one-seventh that at San Francisco, and it 
all falls during the spring and summer ; for the rainy season 
of the Colorado Desert does not come at the same time with 
that of the remainder of the state, but is synchronous with th« 
rainy season of Northwestern Mexico. 

The rain along the middle coast of California usually comes 
slowly, and falls gently and perpendicularly. Here it is very 
seldom that two inches of rain fall in a day, and three inches 
have not fallen Avithin twenty-four hours in ten years ; while 
in the Eastern states the former figure is reached frequently, 
and the latter every year — where also the rain is generally 
accompanied with violent and long-continued storms of wind. 
The rains of the Sierra Nevada are far more abundant in quan- 
tity, and fiercer in the manner of their coming, than those 
about the bay of San Francisco. It is established that the 
amount of rain, and its equivalent snow, increases on the west- 
ern slope of the Sierra Nevada with the elevation ; but our 
statistics are not sufliciently extensive to enable us to deter- 
mine whether the increase is in regular ratio to the altitude, or 
what the proportions are between the snow and rain at clifter- 
ent heights. It is, however, an unquestioned fact that, in or- 
dinary seasons, the amount of rain at Sonora, two thousand 
five hundred feet above the sea, is from twice to thrice as great 
as in Stockton, only seventy miles distant, at the sea-level ; 
3 



34 BESOUKCESOF C A L I F O K N I A . 

and the. same diiference is observed between Nevada and Mar 
rysville, which bear similar relations of distance and elevation 
to each other. 

The statistics given in the preceding part of this section 
relative to the amount of rain-fall at San Francisco, are intend- 
ed to represent ordinary years, such as all those between 1847 
and 1860. But the winter of 1861-62 proved to be an ex- 
traordinary season, the amount of rain being double that w^hich 
has fallen in any other winter since the American conquest. 
The average rain-fall durins: the winter months at San Fran- 
Cisco is about 12 inches ; whereas, between the 1st of Novem- 
ber, 1861, and the 1st of February, 1862, 37 inches fell in San 
Francisco, and during the same period 101 inches fell in So- 
nora, Tuolumne county. During the four months from the 1st 
of November, 1861, to the 28th of February, 1S62, inclusive, 
45.53 inches of rain fell in San Francisco, viz. : 4.10 in Novem- 
ber; 9.54 in December ; 24.36 in January; and 7.53 in Feb- 
ruary. This rain caused a great flood, which did much damage 
along most of the rivers, and especially in the Sacramento 
Basin, where Sacramento City, Stockton, Marysville, and nu- 
merous minor towns, were completely inundated, and the 
whole central part of the basin, including an area one hundred 
and fifty miles long and twenty miles wide, was converted 
into a great lake, which covered the land to a depth varying 
from two to ten feet for more than a month. The long K^ura- 
tion of the flood, its great height, and the vast damage which 
it did, will render it an epoch in the history of the state, and 
" make it well worthy of study, especially so far as relates to 
the Sacramento Basin, where the most serious injury was done 
— that basin extending north and south from Mount Shasta to 
the Tejon Pass, a distance of four hundred and fifty miles ; and 
east and west from the summit of the Coast Range to that of 
the Sierra Nevada, a distance of one hundred miles. These 
two ranjres unite at the two ends of the basin, which has its 
outlet in the middle, where the Sacramento from the north and 
the San Joaquin from the south, having united their waters in 



CLIMATE. 35 

latitude 39°, break through the Coast Mountains to reach the 
Pacific. It may he said that the waters of these streams, aftei 
their union, pass through three straits : one at the Golden 
Gate, one hundred feet deep and a mile wide ; one at the 
i~*raits of Carquinez, fifteen feet deep and three-quarters of a 
mile wide, thirty-five miles from the ocean ; and one near the 
head of Suisun Bay, half a mile wide and ten feet deep. The 
Goklen Gate. and the straits of Carquinez afford an abundant 
outlet for all the water from the interior, but not so with the 
pass at the head of Suisun Bay. The land at this place is low 
— not more than six or eight feet above low-water mark — for 
a width of three miles, beyond Avhich there are hills, which 
prevent the spreading of the water to a greater distance. The 
river is shallow and crooked ; the banks lined with bushes and 
covered with tules, which obstruct the passage of the water in 
time of flood. 

During the flood of January, 18G2, there was very little 
perceptible increase in the height of the water in San Fran- 
cisco and Suisun Bays above the level of ordinary high tide. 
But there was no flow of the tide ; a continual ebb of thick, 
muddy water, poured out at the Golden Gate for weeks to- 
gether, discoloring the sea to a distance of forty miles from 
land. In the bays the water became almost fresh, and the 
planted oysters were killed by it in their beds near Oak- 
land. 

. We may presume, since thirty-six inches of water fell at 
San Francisco from November to January inclusive, of 1861- 
'62, that the same amount fell in all the low lands of the Sac- 
ramento Basin, nearly one-half of its area. We may presume 
further that the amount which fell at Sonora is a f^xir repre- 
sentation of the amount which fell on the Sierra Nevada, one- 
half of the area of the basin. But possibly snow, which has not 
yet melted, formed one-third of the snow and rain which fell 
on the Sierra Nevada. It is not, therefore, necessary to take 
any account of that third, in this consideration of the flood of 
1862 — written, as it is, before the waters have gone down. 



36 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

There wa:^, then, a f;ill of three feet of water over an area of 
about twenty-two thousand live Inindred square miles, and a 
fall of eight and a hah"" feet over an area of fifteen thousand 
square miles. This would give us an average of five and one- 
foui th feet over an area of thirty-seven thousand five hundred 
squai:e miles. The first foot was absorbed by the sand and 
earth, dried during a very arid summer and fall; and then 
there were four feet of water to escape through an outlet half 
a mile wide, from an area nearly as large as England, or the 
state of Ohio. 

The outlet proved insufiicient: tlie waters heaped them- 
selves up in the lowest part of the Sacramento Basin, the size 
of which low portion I have already given as one hundred and 
fifty miles long and twenty wide, or an area of three thousand 
square miles. jSTow, four feet of water over an area of tliirty- 
sevcn thousand five hundred square miles, will, if collected 
within three thousand square miles, form a body forty-eight 
feet deep ; and that figure represents the amount of water that 
had to escape through the Sacramento River, below the mouth 
of the San Joaquin. It is to be observed that, as the outlet of 
the Sacramento Basin is in its centre, so the freshets come 
simultaneously from the north and from the south. The rains 
fall along the whole length of the Sierra IS'evada at the same 
time ; and as the mountain-streams are short and swift, they 
pour down their floods immediately and all together. Such 
are tlie circumstances which contributed to the great flood of 
1862, and may contribute to other floods in the future. 

During January, 1862, 24.36 inches of rain fell in San Fran-' 
Cisco, according to records kept by Thomas Tennant, Esq. ; 
8.66 inches fell in Sacramento, according to Dr. T. M. Logan ; 
37.79 niches fell at Downieville, according to Dr. T. R. Kibbe ; 
and 33.79 inches fell in Grass Valley, according to Mr. Atwood. 
I presume that all these figures are correct save those for San 
Francisco ; and while I admit the care and accuracy of Mr. 
Tennant, I must suspect that somebody played tricks with his 
gauge, upon which he could not keep a constant watch. 



CLIMATE. 37 

Between the 1st of November, 1861, and tlie 1st of Febru- 
ary, 1862, 37 inches of rain fell in San Francisco; 75.69 in 
Grass Valley; 79.28 in Downieville; 101 in Sonora; 42 inches 
of rain and 50 feet of snow (the snow probably eqnallino; 60 
inches of water) on the summit of the Sierra Xevada at Hen- 
ness Pass ; and 34 feet of snow and a great amount of rain 
(not measured) on the summit of the same range at the Big- 
Tree Road. The observations at the Henness Pass were kept 
by Mr. S. R. Dunham; those at the Big-Tree Road by Mr. 
Richey. 

There have been " rainy seasons" in California which passed 
without rain ; and the grass, receiving no moisture in winter, 
spring, or summer, has remained brown for a period of eigh- 
teen months. But no drought — more fearful than the worst 
of floods — has visited the country during the last twenty years, 
nor have Ave any accurate information about those that are re- 
ported to have happened before that time. 

So long as the wind blows from the north, we expect fair 
weather ; when it veers to the south, rain may be expected, 
usually within forty-eight hours. Sometimes, after a rain, the 
clouds near the earth move toward the south, while those 
higher up are going in the contrary direction : in such case, 
more rain may be expected. In no part of Europe or the 
Atlantic states can the state of the weather be predicted or 
guessed with so much reasonable confidence as in California. 
Here it is almost a certainty that nineteen days out of twenty 
in summer and fall, and tliat ten out of twenty on an average 
in winter and spring, will be clear and warm. Many circum- 
stances of value, in furnishing grounds for predicting the state 
of the weather in other regions, are of no use here. In the 
Mississippi valley, for instance, three consecutive frosty morn- 
ings are considered as an almost certain indication of rain ; but 
in California, frosts have no such significance : for a dozen 
may occur successively in the coast valleys or foot-hills of the 
Sierra Nevada, and nobody expects rain the more on that 
account. 



38 BESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 28. Dryness of Climate. — The small amount of rain dur- 
ing the winter, the entire want of it during the summer, the 
warmth of the sun, and the great number of cloudless days, 
render the climate a very dry one. As one conseqence or ac- 
companiment of our dry climate and clear sky, it may be worth 
while to observe that near the ocean the clouds are rarely pic- 
turesque or sublimely beautiful. The magnificent sunsets, 
where the god of light goes down amid curtains of gold and 
crimson — those high-piled banks of clouds which adorn the 
heavens before and after thunder-showers, in th^ Mississippi 
valley — are never seen near the coast. 

Dew is very rare or slight over a great part of the state. 
During the summer and autumn, many of the rivers sink in 
the sand soon after leaving the mountains in which they rise ; 
the earth is dry and baked hard to a depth of many inches or 
even feet ; the grass and herbage, except near springs, or on 
swampy land, are dried up, and as brown as the soil on which 
they grew. 

It has been said that very hot days are less oppressive in 
California than equal heat in the Eastern states, because the 
cool nights serve to invigorate the system, and the extreme 
dryness of the climate favors the evaporation of sweat, and 
thus keeps the body cooler than in districts where the earth is 
always moist. Evaporation is so rapid, that a beefsteak hung 
up in the air will dry before it can commence to putrefy. A 
dead rat thrown into the street, where its body is crushed by 
wagon-wheels so that its viscera are exposed to the air, will 
" dry up," and its stiff hide and meat will lie during a whole 
summer in a mummy-like condition. In many places, steel 
may be exposed to the night air for weeks without getting a 
touch of rust. 

It is common to ascribe the effects of the dryness of the 
atmosphere to the "purity" of the air; but it is rather the 
absence of moisture. I know no reason for supposing that, 
apart from its dryness, the air in California is purer than in 
any other part of the continent. It may be,]iowever, that the 



CLIMATE. 39 

constant decomposition of animal and vegetable manner, lying 
on wet ground, under a hot sun, causes the air in other states 
to be filled with such gases as are not set free to an equal 
extent here. 

In May and June, all California " dries up" — the rivers, the 
brooks, the springs, the ditches, the vegetation — and, with 
them, many of the resources of the country. 

§ 29. Length of Days. — ^The shortest day in the year, the 
20th of December, measures nine hours and four minutes be- 
tween sunrise and sunset at Crescent City, and ten hours at 
San Diego ; while the longest day, the 20th of June, measures 
fifteen hours and seventeen minutes on the southern border, 
and fourteen hours and nineteen minutes on the northern bor- 
der of the state — or, measuring from the beginning of twilight 
in the morning to the end of twilight at night, the day meas- 
ures nineteen hours and forty-seven minutes on the Siskiyon 
Mountains, and seventeen hours and forty-three minutes at 
Fort Yuma. 

§ 30. Thimder- Storms. — Thunder-storms are very rare in 
California. Lightning is not seen more than three or four 
times a year at San Francisco, and then it is never near, but 
far off, playing about the peak of Mount Diablo. Thunder is 
still more rare. Indeed, many persons have been here for 
years, and cannot say that they have ever seen the one or 
heard the other. During eleven years' residence in the state, 
I have never seen a brilliant flash of lightning or heard a loud 
clap of thunder. Thunder-storms are sometimes witnessed 
high up in the mountains, and in the Great Basin ; very rarely 
in any of the low land of the state. In May, 1800, a house in 
Sonora was struck by lightning; and in February, 1861, three 
vessels in Humboldt Bay were struck in the same manner: 
and, though there were persons in the house and on all the 
vessels, no serious injury was done to either person or prop- 
erty in any case. On the 25th of May, 1860, a Chinaman was 



40 EESOTJKCESOFCALIFOENIA. 

killed by lightning near the Lexington House, on the Coloma 
road, in Sacramento county. 

Tiie weather never has that peculiar condition which isolates 
everybody electrically, and then fills them with electricity. In 
New York, on a dry winter evening, a man dressed in wool- 
len and shod in woollen slippers, after sliding along on the 
carpet a few steps, > will accumulate so much electricity, that 
when he thrusts his finger at another person, a visible spark 
will fly off, and he can light gas with it ! But this amusing 
experiment, common as it is in the Eastern states, never has 
been successful, and probably never will be often practised, 
here. 

§ 31. Sail. — Hail is a rarity; and instead of falling in July 
and August, as is usual in the Eastern states and Europe, it is 
seen in California only between February and May. On the 
10th of May, 1856, a storm of hail-stones, some of them weigh- 
ing twelve pounds each, visited a small district at Butte Creek, 
in Shasta county. It has several times happened that hail- 
stones more than an inch in diameter have fallen in the Sacra- 
mento valley. 

The Aurora Horealis is seldom seen in California, perhaps 
not more than half a dozen times Avithin the last ten years. 
The aurora of the 28th of August, 1859, seen over a great part 
of the world, w^as plainly visible in this state. 

§ 32. JEarthquakes. — Earthquakes are common in some 
parts of California, and especially at San Francisco, Los An- 
geles, and near the Tejon Pass, at the southern junction of the 
Sierra Nevada and Coast Mountains. They are rare at Sacra- 
mento, Marys ville, Yallejo, and Napa. As a general rule, they 
are less frequent and less severe in the northe^-n than in the 
southern part of the state. The vicinity ot Humboldt is moi-e 
often shaken than any other place north of the bay of San 
Francisco. About a dozen earthquakes are felt in a year at 
different places in the state j not so many at one place. Most 



CLIMATE. 4\ 

of the shocks are so slight as to pass unnoticed by a great 
majority of the people ; and there are persons who have re- 
sided six or eight years in San Francisco, and many who have 
resided ten years in other parts of the state, and say they have 
never felt an earthquake. ]^o person has been hurt, nor has 
any strongly-built Iiouse been injured, by an earthquake in 
California, north of latitude 35°, since the American conquest. 
Several brick walls have been cracked in San Fi-ancisco, but 
they were weak structures, built on "made ground," and 
would perhaps have cracked by settling, of tlieir own weight. 
On three or four occasions, large four-story houses have been 
so much shaken, that the inmates have run out in great alarm ; 
but on examination it was found that the buildings were unin- 
jured, even in the slightest perceptible manner. 

On one such occasion, a friend of mine, who thought his life 
in great danger, and ran to save it, observed before he left his 
room that the water was splashed out of his basin by the 
movement of the house. The basin was of earthen ware, about 
fifteen inches in diameter at the top, six inches deep, half full 
of water, and it stood on an ordinary wash-stand. He sup- 
posed that, with another such a sliock or two, the building 
must be in ruins ; and he was very much astonished the next 
m.orning to find that thei-e was not the slightest crack in the 
plastering. His room was in the fourth story of a brick hotel. 
It seems that tlije whole building had moved together. 

The fear of earthquakes prevents the erection of high struc- 
tures for show ; and, for this reason, there is not a tall steeple 
in San Francisco. The largest churches have been commenced 
on such a plan that they might be crowned with lofty spires, 
but it was thought more prudent to leave them with low tow- 
ers. The same motive induces many wealthy families to reside 
in wooden houses, which are considered better fitted to resist 
the shocks of earthquakes. These wooden houses, it must be 
kept in mind, are not " framed" with mortices and tenons, as 
large wooden houses are usually erected in the Atlantic states, 
but are " Chicago frames," held together with nails. This 



42 KESO LUCES OF C A L I F O k :N I A . 

Bty]-ii of building, thougli introduced solely because of its 
cheapness and simplicity, is considered by far the most secure 
against earthquakes. 

No earthquake felt at San Frnncisco since 1846 has been 
more severe than one which visited Buffalo, New York, in 
1857, as described in the American Jcnirnal of Science and 
Art for September, 1858. On the 10th of July, 1855, an 
earthquake cracked the walls of twenty-six houses in Los An- 
geles; but no Avail was thrown down, nor was any person 
injured. 

Most of the earthquakes of California are confined to very 
small districts. Thus, not more than one in ten of those felt 
in San Francisco is perceived in Sacramento. The most ex- 
tensive Californian earthquake of which we have any record 
was that of January 9th, 1857. It shook the earth from Fort 
Yuma to Sacramento, a distance of five hundred miles, being 
most severe at Fort Tejon, about half way between these two 
points. Loud noises, either rumbling or like explosions, were 
heard to accompany the shock at Tejon, San Bernardino, Yisa- 
lia, and in the Mojave valley. The waters of the Mokelumne 
Hiver were thrown upon the banks so as almost to leave the 
bed bare in one place. The current of Kern River was turned 
up-stream, and the Avater ran four feet deep OA^er the bank. 
The Avater of Tulare Lake Avas thrown upon its shores ; and 
the Los Angeles RiA^er Avas flung out of its bed. In Santa 
Clara valley the artesian Avells were much affected : some 
ceased to run, and others had an increased supply of Avater. 
Xear San Fernando a large stream of Avater was found run- 
ning from the mountains, where there was no water before. 
In San Diego, and at San Fernando, soA'eral houses were 
thrown doAvn ; and at San BueneA^entura the roof of the Mis- 
sion Church fell in. Several new springs were formed near 
Santa Barbara by the shock. In the San Gabriel A^illey the 
earth opened in a gap several miles long ; and in one place 
the river deserted its ancient bed, and followed this new open- 
ing. In the valley of the Santa Clara River there Avere large 



CLIMATE. 43 

cracks in the earth. A large fissure was made in the western 
part of the town of San Bernardino. At Fort Tejon the shock 
threw down nearly all the buildings ; snapped off large trees 
close to the ground, and overthrew others, tearing them up by 
the roots ; and tore the earth a})art in a fissure twenty feet 
wide and forty miles long, the sides of which rent then came 
together with so much violence, that the earth was forced up 
in a ridge ten feet wide and several feet higli. At Reed's 
ranch, not far from Fort Tejon, a house was thrown down, 
and a woman in it killed. 

In September, 1812, on a Sunday, an earthquake threw 
down the Mission Church at San Juan Capistrano, in latitude 
33° 20', and thirty persons were killed. The church at Santa 
Inez, in Santa Barbara county, was thrown down on the same 
day; but the shock, according to report, was an hour later 
than that at San Juan Capistrano, and there was nobody in the 
church when it fell. At the same time the sea receded a Ions: 
distance from the ordinary place of the water's edge on the 
beach of Santa Barbara ; and the people there, knowing that 
it would soon rush upon the shore, fled to the higher ground, 
and by that means alone saved their lives. These reports 
made about this earthquake of 1812, to Dr. J. B. Trask, by 
old residents, have never been contradicted, though published 
six or eight years ago. 

The old Mission Church at Santa Clara was thrown down 
by an earthquake in 1818. On the loth of IMay, 1851, a severe 
shock was felt in San Francisco. Windows were broken ; mer- 
chandise was thrown down from shelves in stores; and vessels 
in the harbor rolled heavily. On the 26th of November, 1858, 
nearly every brick building in San Jose was injured by an 
earthquake. On the 3d of July, 1861, Amador valley, in Ala- 
meda county, was severely shaken. Adobe houses were seri- 
ously injured, chimneys toppled down, furniture was flung 
from side to side of the houses and much broken, and men in 
the fields were thrown down. 

A severe shock of an eartliquake was felt at Fort Yuma and 



44 RESCUE CES OF CALTFOKXIA. 

vicinity on the 29th of November, 1852. The low grounds 
near the Colorado cracked open with long, wide fissures, from 
which water, sand, and mud, spouted up. The fissures were 
in some places so large, that they turned the river from its 
course ; aud the change was so sudden, that great multitudes 
of fish were left to die in the mud. At the same time, the 
mud-volcanoes of Lower California, distant forty-five miles 
south westward from Fort Yuma, resumed their activity; for, 
although there is no record of their previous action, yet they 
probably existed before. A pool of hot, sulphurous water had 
been observed at the place by Americans since 1849. Imme- 
diately after the shock of 1852, the ofticers at Fort Yuma saw 
a great body of steam shoot up at least one thousand feet in 
the desert to the southwest ; and when, soon afterward, some 
of them went out to examine into the cause of it, they found 
the mud-volcanoes on the site of the old pool, throwing up 
steam, boiling water, and mud, very much like the salses liir- 
ther north. 

Earthquakes, according to the common theory of Califor- 
nians, are electrical in their origin, or closely connected with 
electrical influences. Many of the strongest shocks have been 
preceded by a condition of the atmosphere very similar to that 
which precedes thunder-storms in other lands. When the 
weather is sultry and oppressive in San Francisco, people say, 
" Look out for an earthquake!" And it usually comes — j^er- 
haps so faint as to be barely perceptible, and sometimes not 
until several hours after a change in the weather. 

Tlie frequency of earthqiiakes in California has caused a 
number of persons, perhaps a hundred or more, to leave the 
state, and return to their former homes on the Atlantic side 
of the continent. And yet there they are in more danger from 
lightning than hei'e from earthquakes, for there are fifty killed 
by lightning in the- Mississippi valley for one killed by an 
earthquake in California. A year rarely passes that a dozen 
persons are not struck by thunderbolts within three hundred 
miles of St. Louis. [See Appendix^ p. 464.] 



C L I ]\r A T E . 45 

§ 33. Sand-Siorms. — In tlic Colorado Desert, and in some 
other districts in the southern part of the state, sand-storms, 
similar to tlie simooms of Africa, but not so dangerous, occa- 
sionally occur. The sand, which forms the greater portion of 
the soil, unprotected by sod, vegetation, or moisture, is swept 
away in dense clouds by every high wind, and carried many 
miles, a terror to man and beast. The storm stops the trav- 
eller, because lie dare not open his eyes to the little tiinty par- 
ticles; nor can he eat, for the dust covers his food and fills his 
mouth : and even in the most tightly-built houses the sand 
penetrates and fills the air. 

A newspaper correspondent speaks thus of a Colorado sand- 
storm : 

" Should the traveller happen to enco,unter a sand-storm, 
however, he may not get along so smoothly. A huge, black 
cloud, rising from the western horizon, warns him of its ap- 
proach. Kapidly it spreads over the sky, darkens the sun, 
and the fine particles of sand are swept before the gale in a 
dense and suffocating cloud ; even the larger gravel and peb- 
bles are sometimes lifted from the plain and carried like hail 
before the force of the blast. The horses are blinded, para- 
lyzed with fear, and no urging can induce them to go forward. 
Were it otherwise, to go on would be folly; the road and sun 
are hid from view ; no landmarks by Avhich to be guided — ■ 
safety bids you remain. The traces are unhitched, and the 
horses tethered to the wagon ; the only course is to securely 
fiisten down the sides to the wagon-top, and wait with, what 
patience one can command until the storm has passed, which 
will be, doubtless, in from six to ten hours. 

"Once the staGfe encountered a sand-storm while within 
three hundred yards of a station ; the horses could not be in- 
duced to move, and there was no remedy but to stay by them 
till Uie gale had spent its force, though the station was even 
in sight. 

"I have found such a storm sufficiently disagreeable Avliile 
housed bv the riv^er-sido, the fine sand penetrating everywhere. 



46 EESOFKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

and have no ambition to encounter one upon the central des- 
ert. Luckily, they are not very common in the severest aspect ; 
in summer, quite rare." 

Note. — Tlie chix}f writers upon the Meteorology of California have been, 
Dr. Henry Gibbons, of Alameda, and Dr. T. M. Logan, of Sacramento, whose 
writings have been published in the books of the Smithsonian Institute, and 
in ihe newspapers of San Francisco and Sacramento. 



GEOLOGY, 47 



CHAPTER III. 
GEOLOGY. 

§ 34. General Geological Character. — California, geologi- 
cally considered, belongs chiefly to the paleozoic and tertiary 
epochs. The carboniferous rocks are Avanting, or their exist- 
ence in the state is confined ^o a very small district, and has 
not been demonstrated even there. A tertiary sandstone, some 
of which is metamorphic, having lost its original stratification 
under the influence of intense heat, underlies the valleys of the 
Sacramento, the San Joaquin, and the coast, and is seen in the 
Coast Mountains, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Desert. 
Granite occupies the higher portions of all the mountainous 
districts, and considerable portions of the Great Basin and the 
borders of the Colorado Desert. The scarcity of stratified 
rocks is plainly discoverable by the traveller in the number 
and ruggedness of the mountains ; only primary, eruptive, and 
metamorphic rocks make such steep hill-sides. The thinly- 
stratified rocks, with intervening layers of clay, are soon worn 
down by the water into gentle slopes, and covered with fertile 
soil, every foot of which may be turned over by the plough, 
and with profit. Such is not the character of California, nearly 
all of which is primary or metamorphic. 

Many rocks besides granite and tertiary sandstone appear 
in irregularly-distributed patches. About Mounts Shasta and 
Lassen, Castle Peak, the Marysville Bnttes, in the plateau of 
the Sierra Nevada, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Desert, 
there are considerable tracts of basalt, lava, trap, and trachyte ; 
and in other places there are small tracts. Some very remark- 
able hills of basalt, called "Table Mountains," are found in the 



y 



4S Tw E S O U K C E S OF C A L I F O E N I A . 

Sierra Nevada. The largest of these is in Tiiolumiie county, 
about three thousand feet above the sea, and one hundred 
miles eastward from San Francisco. It is thirty miles long, 
tliree hundred to eight hundred feet high above the surround- 
ing country, and about a quarter of a mile wide, in many jilaces 
less. The basaltic formation is evident at a distance, from the 
perpendicularity of the sides near the to}>, and the flatness of 
its summit, gently descending toward the west. xVlong the 
sides of the Sierra Xevada, near the lino of separation between 
the sandstone of the valley and the granite of the higher parts 
of the Sierra, are found various other rocks, among whicli 
slate, quartz, and limestone, are prominent. Tlie slates are 
usually sot\:, their cleavage often perpendicular to the horizon. 
Limestone is abundant about two thousand feet aboye the sea, 
between latitudes 37^ 30' and 30^. It is all metamorphie, and 
some of it is a line marble, which may prove of value for stat- 
uary. Most of it is gray in color. Metamorphie limestone is 
also found near Santa Cruz, near New Almaden, at Monte 
Diablo, and in Shasta and Siskiyou counties. It is said that 
some stratitied secondary limestone has been foimd in Shasta 
county, but this is a matter of doubt. Xo secondary coal has 
been found in the state. Tertiary coal, much of it a lignite, 
has been found at various places in San Diego, Santa Clara, 
Alameda, San Francisco, S:m Mateo, Contra Costa, and So- 
noma counties, and much n\oney has been spent in opening 
veins. 

§ 35. Diluvium. — The Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys 
are covered with a diluvium from four hundred to fifteen hun- 
dred feet deep. It is composed of alternate layers of sand, 
gravel, and clay. The most complete infornuition which we 
have as to the nature of this diluvium is given in the report 
of the boring of an artesian well, one thousand feet deep, at 
Stockton. This is, I believe, the only artesian well in the Sac- 
ramento Basin ; at least, it is the most notable one. An at- 
tempt was made to bore an artesian well in Sacramento, but 
tlie auger struck a stratum of boulders about f^ur hundred feet 



GEOLOGY. 49 

from the surface, and was tmable to pass through it. The fol- 
lowing is a statement of the different strata encountered in the 
Stockton well, and the thickness of each in feet, beginning at 
the surface : 

Black loam, 6 ; red clay, ; dark-red clay and sand, IS ; blue 
clay, mica, and sand, 10; blue clay, hard, highly stratified, 4; 
blue clay, mica, and sand, 3 ; blue clay, hard, and highly strati- 
fied, 4 ; green sandstone and clay, very hard, 29 ; blue clay, 
sand, and gravel, slightly impregnated with gold, 2 ; blue clay, 
sand, and gravel, 18 (100); green sandstone, clay, and mica, 
hard, 15; fine gi'avel, 5; gray quicksand, 15; blue clay, 8; 
gray sand and clay, 27 ; dark-blue clay and sand, 33 (203) ; 
coarse gravel and pebble-stone, 27; blue clay, 7; gray sand, 
13 ; blue clay and sand conglomerated, 12 ; light-gray sand, 3 ; 
blue clay, 6; light sand, 9; blue clay, 1 ; fine gray sand, 12; 
dark clay, 2 ; fine gray sand, 7 (302) ; clay and sand, 10 ; coarse 
gray sand, 1; light clay, 19; coarse sand, 14. (Note. — At 
340 feet, in this stratum of sand, a red-wood stump was found, 
and a stream of water ascended to within three feet of the 
surface.) Light clay, 8; fine gray sand, 1^; light clay, 20i ; 
coarse gray sand, 20 ; clay, very hard, 4 (400) ; gray sand and 
clay, 5; clay, 20; coarse gray sand, 3; light clay, 15; fine 
gray sand, 4 ; light clay and sand, 1 ; coarse gray sand and 
clay, 1 ; hght-blue clay, 11 ; gray sand and clay, 7; light-blue 
clay, 15; fine gravel, 1; light-blue clay and gravel, 13 (496); 
fine gravel, 25 ; clay and sand, 2 ; sand and clay, 5 ; coarse 
gray sand, 7 ; fine blue clay, 8 ; fine gray sand, 42. (Note. — 
At 560 feet, in this stratum of sand, obtained a stream of water, 
rising five feet above the surface.) Gray sand and clay, 15 
(GOO) ; light clay and sand, 6 ; fine gray sand, 24 ; clay and 
sand, 3 ; fine sand, 9 ; fine gravel, 3 ; fine gray sand, 5 ; coarse 
sand, 2 ; blue clay and sand, 8 ; gray sand and clay, 8 ; clay 
and sand, 5 ; fine gray sand, 10 ; clay, 5 ; coarse gray sand, 2 ; 
fine light-blue clay, 4 ; hard, chocolate-colored clay, 2 ; blue 
clay, 2 (098) ; fine gray sand, 30 ; clay and sand, 8 ; gray sand, 
4 ; light clay, 10 ; coarse sand, 6 ; blue clay, 4 ; dark clay, very 



50 EESOUECES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

hard, 2 ; gray sand, 4 ; blue clay, i.^; liglit-drab clay, 3 ; very 
fine gray sand, 24 (807) ; light-drab clay, 1 ; light-gray sand, 
very fine, 27; dark-gray c:ay, 17; light-blue clay, very hard, 
22 ; light clay, 11 ; dark, 4'hocolate-colored clay, very hard, 10 ; 
light clay, very hard, 15 (910) ; fine gray sand — a good stream 
of Avater, 2 ; clay and sand, 11. (Note. — A large stream of 
water was obtained in this stratmn, rising seven feet above 
the surface.) Fine sand and gravel, 10; blue clay, 20; sand 
and gravel, 6 ; blue clay, 27 ; clay, gravel, and mica, 14 (1,000) ; 
in sand, 2. 

The depth of the well is 1,002 feet. The temperature of the 
water, as it issues from the well-surface, is 77°, the atmosphere 
being 60° Fahrenheit. The water rises eleven feet above the 
surface of the plain, and nine feet above the established grade 
of the city. The quantity of water discharged is about sixty 
thousand gallons in twenty-four hours. 

The diluvium in the coast vallevs bears a strono: o-eneral re- 
semblance, in its material and stratification, to that of the San 
Joaquin valley. In many places where artesian wells have 
been sunk, fossil wood and bone have been found three hun- 
dred and four hundred feet below the surface of the ground, 
and two hundred feet or more below the present level of the 
sea. In the mountains there are also large bodies of diluvium, 
but the material is coarser than in the valleys, being usually a 
gravelly clay, deposited in distinctly-marked layers, with inter- 
vening strata of sand and boulders. 

§ 86. Gold. — Gold is found in nearly all j)arts of California, 
but is most abundant on the western slope of the Sierra Xe- 
vada, between two thousand and six thousand feet above the 
sea, from latitude 37° to 40° — a district two hundred and 
twenty miles long by forty wide. This may be called the Sac- 
ramento district. It is drained by the Feather, Yuba, Ameri- 
can, Cosumnes, Calaveras, Stanislaus, and Tuolumne rivers. 
The next disti'ict in importance is in the northwestern corner 
of the state, including that part of the Sacrainento Basin west 
of Shasta, and the lower portion of the Klamath valley. Kext 



GEOLOGY. 51 

is the Kern River district, including White Iiiver between 
35° and 3G° on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada. There 
are goki diggings on the San Gabriel and Santa Anita Rivers, 
and in tlie San Francisquito canon in Los Angeles county. In 
the Colorado valley, fifty miles above Fort Yuma, gold has 
been found. Nearly every one of the coast counties has more 
or less gold : it has been found in the valleys of Russian River, 
Putah Creek, Soquel Creek, Coyote Creek, the Salinas River, 
and in the earth in which the city of San Francisco is built. 

§ 37. Auriferous Lodes. — Gold is found fastened in stony 
veins, and loose in earthy matter : the latter called placer dig- 
gings, the former auriferous quartz lodes. 

It is the accepted theory among geologists that all gold was 
once enclosed in quartz lodes, and that the gold in the placers 
was obtained from the disintegration or breaking up of the 
lodes. The surface of the earth was once all rock^ the earthy 
matter w^as formed by the action of air and water on this 
rock. The earthy matter was then deposited in diluvium, 
among which was the gold that had existed in the rock pre- 
vious to its disintegration. 

Gold is sometimes found in granite, syenite, limestone, slate, 
and other rocks ; but the auriferous lodes, regularly worked, 
are all of quartz. Most of the quartz veins run parallel with 
the main divide of the Sierra — that is, north-northwest and 
south-southeast — are from a line to thirty feet thick, and are 
nearly perpendicular, dipping to the eastward. They are be- 
tween two thousand and six thousand feet above the sea. The 
general color of the rock is white, occasionally bluish, fre- 
quently reddish-brown, the color of iron-rust, derived from the 
decomposition of iron pyrites. In some veins the rock is com- 
pact, and then it is usually verylvdiite; in others it is full of 
cracks and crevices, and ready to break into small pieces with 
a little pounding. Most of the veins have gold in them; only 
a few have enough to pay for working. The gold is in })ar- 
ticles of irregular shape, but with some regularity of size, scat- 
tered through the rock. The particles are seldom larger than 



52 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

a pea, never weigh more than an ounce, and often are so fine 
as to be invisible to the naked eye. 

A lode has usually a peculiar kind of particles, either lar';^e 
or small. Most of ^he gold in a lode is usually in a rich streak, 
near the "foot wall" or lower side, as if the metal had settled 
down by its gravity. The rock near the " hanging Avail" or 
upper side of the lode is poorest. Occasionally several rich 
streaks will be found in a lode — one streak with coarse par- 
ticles of gold, another with fine. All parts of a lode are not 
equally rich ; but the gold is found in spots. A lode which is 
very rich in one place may be very poor in another not far 
oflT; indeed, there is no auriferous vein in the state known to 
be regularly rich for a long distance on the surface. The gold 
is found in streaks or i30ckets ; the rich streak nms downward, 
and has a regular dip in the lode. It is a matter of very great 
importance to the miner to ascertain the direction of this dip, 
and here is the rule : Take out some of the vein stone, and 
examine the wall rock carefully. In most veins it will be 
found that the wall has little furrows, as though the lode had 
been pushed upward. These furrows indicate the direction 
of the dip of the rich streaks. Pockets may be considered as 
interrupted streaks ; and when one rich pocket is discovered, 
others may usually be found by going down into the vein in 
the proper direction, and that is ascertained in the same man- 
ner as for continuous streaks. This is an important rule, and 
it is now published for the first time. I am indebted for it to 
J. E. Clayton, Esq., mining engineer. 

§ 38. Placers. — The placers are of two kinds — diluvial., or 
those deposited under large bodies of water, as if in a deluge ; 
and alluvial., or those deposited under the influence of streams 
of water, such as the j^resent rivers and brooks of the countiy. 
It is evident, from an examination of the mining districts, that 
large tracts of auriferous ground have been deposited under 
diluvial influences. The same strata are found extendinc: over 
wide areas, and the deposition is diflerent fi-om that made by 
a river. The gold, being nineteen times heavier than water, 



GEOLOGY. 63 

and from six to eight times heavier than the clay and stones 
witli which it is found, has sunk to the bottom of the diluvium. 
The best diggings are therefore near the " bed-rock." The 
dirt in which the gold is found is usually a stiff clay, wdth 
gravel and large stones intermixed. The common phrase 
"golden sands" may mislead. Pure, fine sand rarely has any 
gold in it ; and the richest deposits of the precious metal are 
in a clay so tough as to give the miner much trouble to dis- 
solve it, with stones in it weighing from a pound to several 
hundred weight. The character of the pay-dirt varies greatly. 
A hill of diluvium may be three hundred feet deep, wath a 
dozen strata of different material, and all of them auriferous in 
different degrees. In some places the pay-dirt is full of boul- 
ders, weighing severajl hundred })Ounds or more; in other 
places the stones are all about as large as a man's head ; in 
others, as large as a lien's egg. In one stratum the dirt is 
red, in another bine, in another browai. In some places the 
dirt was deposited in basins of rock, four or five miles across, 
and from ten to fifty feet deeper at the centre than at the rim. 

The jjlacer-diggings are all found in a very rough, mountain- 
ous country. Tlie gold has not been carried far ; its weight 
has anchored it near its mother-vein. There may be much 
gold in the Sacramento valley ; but if so, it is deposited be- 
neath one thousand feet of diluvium,^ and nine hundred feet 
below the level of the sea, where it will never be disturbed. 

The diluvial placers are in what are called hill and flat dig- 
gings ; the alluvial^ made by streams running through the 
diluvium, are in river-beds, bars, ravines, and gullies. The 
alluvial i)lacers, as a general rule, are richer than the diluvial. 
The streams have carried away much of the dirt, and left 
nearly all the metal. Most of the gold of the rivers comes 
from gullies. There is a gully on a mountain : it is dry, ex- 
cept during heavy rains ; it has steep sides. The rain conies ; 
the water pours down its sides, fiercely sweeping clay, gravel, 
and gold along. The bed of the ravine is not so steep as the 
bides; most of the gold stops there; the dirt is carried away 



54 RESOURCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

into tlie river, with n little gold. A thousand such gullies, 
contributing each a little gold, make a river rich. The heav- 
ier particles are deposited in the middle of the river-bed ; many 
of the smaller particles are deposited at the sides. The richest 
spots in gullies are usually where the bed-rock is full of crev- 
ices, as where slate, with perpendicular strata, crosses the 
gully. In those parts of a gully where the bed is very steep, 
there is usually less gold than in spots nearly level. In rivers, 
the richest spots are usually just below canons, where bars are 
formed. Wherever there are eddies at times of Jiigh water, 
there the gravel, clay, and gold will be deposited ; and when 
the river falls, a bar is exposed. The richest bars of California 
have been found at the mouths of cafions. 

§ 39. Mineralogy of Gold. — The particles of gold in quartz 
are usually very rough in shape, but sometimes they are in 
octahedral crystals, and at others in smooth, leaflike sheets. 
Very rarely specimens of crystals are found, clustered together 
so as to resemble pieces of coral. 

Placer-gold, called " gold dust," is fine and coarse. 

The fine is in scales, grains, flour, shot, and icire. 

Flour-gold is very fine dust. 

Grain-gold is in particles about as large as the end of a pin. 

Scale-gold is in scales from a sixteenth to an eighth of an 
inch across, and as thick as heavy wrapping-paper. 

Shot-gold is in roundish particles, the size of a pin-head. 

Wire-gold is in small wires, from an eighth of an inch to an 
inch long, and as thick as a pin. Sometimes the wires are 
fluted, or hollow on one side; and sometimes they are knotted 
together. 

Coarse gold is coarse-shot, pea, bean, moccasin, cucumber- 
seed, pumpkin-seed, large wire, and miscellaneous coarse. 

The pfea, bean, cucumber-seed, and pumpkin-seed varieties 
of gold, have particles resembling in shape the seeds whence 
they derive their names. The coarse-shot is in particles re- 
sembling coarse shot in shape and size. Moccasin-gold is in 
pieces resembling a low shoe or moccasin in shape, and about 



GEOLOGY. 55 

liiilf an inch long. Large wire-gold is in wirelike pieces, about 
a sixteenth of an inch thick, and from a quarter of an inch to 
an inch long. Miscellaneous coarse gold is in pieces of very 
irregular shape and size. 

Fine gold is often found without any admixture of coarse ; 
coarse is rarely found without some admixture of fine. 

The different varieties of gold are often found separate from 
each other. One gully will have scale gold, another fine wire- 
gold, another moccasin-gokl, another pumpkin^seed gold, and 
so on. These different varieties of gold are frequently found 
very near to each other : a cucumber-seed gully w^ill not be 
more than a hundred yards from a pea gully. There is a small 
hill in El Dorado county; all the gold on one side is fine, all 
on the other coarse. The gold as it originally comes from the 
quartz is rough, but by friction among the gravel and sand it 
becomes smooth. Where all the pieces of gold are rough, it 
has not moved far from its maternal lode ; w'here all the par- 
ticles ai-e small and smooth, the presumption is that it has 
moved a considerable distance. The larger the stream, the 
finer and smoother its gold, as a general rule. 

Most of the gold now obtained is miscellaneous coarse ; the 
little gullies W'hich yielded the delicate varieties are now nearly 
all exhausted. 

Most of the placer-gold is coarse, in pieces w^orth half a dol- 
lar or more. Pieces worth five dollai'S are very common, and 
numberless nuggets worth one hundred dollars or more have 
been found in California. The largest nugget of gold on rec- 
ord was found at Ballaarat, Australia, on the 9th of June, 
1858 ; it weighed two hundred and twenty-four pounds Troy, 
of nearly pure gold, and was called " The Welcome Nugget." 
The next, weighing one hundred and ninety-five pounds Ti'oy, 
^\'as found in Calaveras county, California, in November, 1854. 
Tlie third, called " The Blanche Barkly Nugget," weighed one 
hundred and forty-five pounds Troy, and was also found in 
Australia. Smaller lumps are too mmierous to mention. All 
placer-gold is called " dust," but the particles of the dust are 



50 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

sometimes pretty large. No satisfactory explanation has been 
given of the fact that placer-gold is usually in particles so much 
laro'er than that found in quartz. 

Gold is line and coarse mechanically — that is, in the size of 
its particles — and chemically in its composition. Most metals 
are found in ores, combined chemically with non-metallic sub- 
stances which hide them. The ores have usually neither the 
color, the specific gravity, the strength, nor the other peculiar 
features of the metals. Xative gold is never found as an ore ; 
it is always in a metallic form. The reason of this is, that it 
does not rust on exposure to the air, nor is it dissolved by any 
of the simple acids. And yet it is never found pure, but always 
mixed with silver, in nearly all possible proportions. Fre- 
quently copper and lead are also found in native gold. Tlie 
amount of other metal in gold is designated by figures of fine- 
ness, estimated according to thousandths. Perfectly pure gold 
is 1,000 fine; gold containing one-tenth of its weight in silver 
is 900 fine; that is, 900 parts in 1,000 are gold, and 100 are 
silver. In gold 600 fine, 400 parts in 1,000 are of other 
metal. " 

The native gold in California varies in fineness from 500 to 
990, averaging about 880. One large piece, found at Downie- 
ville, was 992 fine. In Mariposa, Fresno, and Buena Vista 
counties, and at Mono Lake and Walker's River, east of the 
Sierra Nevada, the fineness is very low. The gold of the Col- 
orado is very fine. In other districts there are great variations 
in the fineness within small distances. One has gold 900 fine ; 
another, one hundred yards distant, has gold only 800 fine. 
Ordinarily, all the gold in a gully or in a river-bar is of the 
same fineness ; so also all the gold in a quartz-lode is of the 
same fineness. But there are the same difl'erences of fineness 
between the gold taken from difierent quartz-lodes as in that 
taken from difierent gullies. For these difierences there is no 
satistactory ex]>lanation. 

Let us now rmi through the list of the principal mining dis- 
tricts of the state, giving the fineness of the placer-gold of each : 



GEOLOGY. ^l 

The gold found in the bars and beds of the Klamath and 
Salmon Kivers is in coarse particles, averaging 868 fine, and 
mixed with iridium. 

The gold of Scott River is coarser and poorer. That of the 
South Fork of Scott River is about 875 fine, and coarse. 

The gold on Trinity River, near Weaverville, is in small 
particles, from 885 to 940 fine. 

Twenty miles below Weaverville, on the same river, the 
gold is poorer — from 865 to 870. 

StiU farther down, iridium becomes so abundant, that the 
gold is worth a dollar or a dollar and a half per ounce less 
than it would be if clear of that metal. 

In the gullies and hills near Weaverville there are rich dig- 
gings of coarse gold, from 890 to 960 fine. 

At Gold Bluff the gold is 950 fine. 

The gold found at Yuba is coarse, in rough, flat particles, from 
820 to 830 fine. In some lumps from Yuba little pebbles have 
been found hidden in their centre. 

The gold of most of the creeks near Yuba is from 845 to 
850 fine. 

McAdam's Creek, near Shasta, yields gold from 875 to 885 
fine. 

Cottonwood Creek, near the Oregon line, yields gold of the 
same fineness. 

At Oro Fino, near Yuba, the gold is in wires, and, like all 
wiry gold, is of poor quality, from 760 to 780 fine. 

The Shasta gold is generally coarse, ranging from 865 to 
925 fine, except at French Gulch, where it is only 830 fine. 

The Pit River gold is coarse and poor, 830 fine. 

The Feather River gold is all good, from 890 to 920 fine. 

At Oroville it is from 920 to 940 fine. 

At La Porte, Gibsonville, and Pine Grove, in Sierra county, 
the diggings are deep, and the gold coarse, and from 915 to 
970 fine. At Poor Man's Creek, the gold is coated with some- 
thing like an enamel, the color of iron-rust. When the gold 
is pounded, this enamel breaks off. 
4 



58 KESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

The Downieville gold is coarse, ami from 895 to 925 fine. 

At Goodyear's Bjtt the fineness varies from 880 to 885. 

At Foster's Bar, and f-irther down, from 800 to 900. 

At Shite Creek and Canon Creek, from 900 to 910. 

At Forbestown, in Yuba county, the gohl is 890 fine. 

At Camptouville, the fineness is from 920 to 970, except in 
one hill, which has wiry gold, 870 fine. 

The gold of the Middle Fork of the Yuba River is fine, from 
8S5 to 890. 

That of the creeks and ravines tributary to that stream is 
still finer— from 900 to 920. 

At North San Juan the fineness is from 960 to 965. 

At French Corral it is 920 fine. 

The gold of the Southern Fork of the Yuba River is from 
890 to 900 fine. 

Every hill about the town of Nevada has a quality of gold 
difiering from that of other places in the vicinity. Some of it 
is very good, but the generiil character is poor, from 800 to 
850. Most of it is rough. 

The Grass Valley gold is poor, from 800 to 840. 

At Rough and Ready the gold varies as at Nevada. 

The gold of Yuba county is good, from 940 to 970. 

The Timbuctoo gold in Yuba county is 950 fine. 

The gold of Park's Bar is 910 fine. 

The North Fork of the American River has gold from 915 
to 920 fine; the Middle Fork from 865 to 900; the South 
Fork from 915 to 920. 

At Iowa Hill, the gold is 900 fine ; at Michigan Blufi; 930 ; 
at Forest Ilill, 900; at Yankee Jim's, from 890 to 910; at 
Auburn, 860; below Auburn, and near Ophir, 820; and at 
Secret Ravine, 780. All these placers ai*e in Phicer county. 
At Gold Hill, in Flacer coimty, iridium is found lastened in 
with the gold; the only place on the coast where the two 
metals are found fasteiii'd together. 

Next we come to El Dorado county. The Coloma gold is 
good, about 915 fiu.e ; and ^ome of the hill gold in the vicinity 



GEOLOGY. 59 

of the town is from 920 to 930 fine. The Georgetown gold is 
coarse, and from 890 to 920 fine. AfKelsey'^s Diggings the 
fineness is 860. At Placerville the range is from 870 to 970. 
Coon Hollow, near Placerville, produces gold 970 fine. At 
Diamond Springs the fineness varies from 870 to 900. The 
El Dorado -or Mud Springs gold is 860 fine. The gold of the 
Cosumnes River varies from 865 to 875. 

The gold along the American River, in Sacramento county, 
is from 915 to 920 fine. 

Most of the gold in Amador county is poor, from 865 to 
920. The gold about Vo-cano averages 870; Jackson, 865 to 
868 ; the Buttes, near J:ick.son, 920. 

The gold of the Mokelumne River, above Mokelumne Hill, 
varies from 850 to 910. At the hill, some of the gold has been 
980 fine. At Campo Seco the fineness is 900. Along the Mo- 
kelumne River are many placers where the gold is in coarse, 
wiry .pieces, and poor in quality. At Vallecito, the fineness is 
915 ; at San Andres, 920 ; at Murphy's, 885 ; at Douglas Flat, 
890; at Angel's, 890; at Jesus Maria, from 858 to 860; and 
at Carson, from 890 to 920. 

The gold found along the Stanislaus River is from 875 to 
880 fine. 

Columbia, in Tuolumne county, is the best place for good 
gold in the state; it ranges from 930 to 970. There are many 
other places where gold equally fine is obtained, but non© 
which produces so much gold of a high fineness, with so small 
a proportion of poor gold. The average of the Sonora gold is 
900 ; Jamestown, 870 ; Montezuma Flat, 900 ; ravines at Chi- 
nese Qamp, 950 ; the river and creek claims at Chinese Camp, 
860 ; Don Pedro's Bar, 880 ; Big-Oak Flat, 800 ; and Garote, 
810. 

La Grange, in Stanislaus county, has gold 885 fine ; that of 
the Merced River is from 845 to 860 fine. 

The gold of Mariposa county is poor, and much of it wiry, 
ranging from- 700 to 820 fine, averaging about 760. Some of 
the gold of Mariposa county is coarse, and resembles that of 



60 E E SlO U K C E S OF C A L I F O K N I A . 

high fineness from other -districts, but, on assaying, it proves 
to be poor. 

The gold Ironi the San Joaquin River is in small scales, and 
about 800 fine. 

The Kern River gold is 630 fine. 

The Colorado gold is 930. 

The AValker's River gold is 560 ; the Mono gold 600. 

The above figures of the fineness of gold from various dis- 
tricts refer only to the placer-gold. The gold from diflerent 
quartz-lodes also varies. As a general rule, the quartz-gold is 
not so rich as the placer-gold; but some of the gold taken 
from quartz is nearly as rich as any from the placers. 

§ 40. Silcer. — A large amount of silver is found in Califor- 
nia. One-tenth in Aveight of the gold-dust is silver. But it 
was not until 1860 that valuable veins of argentiferous ore 
were discovered in the state. As gold predominates on tlie 
western side of the main divide of the Sierra Nevada, so does 
silver on the eastern side. The "Washoe mines are not in Cali- 
fornia ; but the Esmeralda and Coso districts are, 

Esmeralda is in latitude 38^ 15', about two hundred and fifty 
miles in a direct line from San Francisco in an eastward direc- 
tion, and just within the limits of the state, as is generally sup- 
posed, though some persons assert that it is in Utah. The 
country is mountainous ; the rock is porphyry and trap. The 
argentiferous veins are of a bluish-white quartz, containing sul- 
phuret of silver. The principal vein of the district runs north 
and south, and this has very little gold ; many other veins, 
containing considerable quantities of gold mixed with the sil- 
ver, run east and west. The main vein is about twenty feet 
wide. The ores assay from thirty to fifteen hundred dollars 
per ton, but the latter figure was only obtained from picked 
specimens. TimbL^' suitable for firewood is abundant, and 
there is sufficient water to supply the wants of a small town. 

The Coso silver district is about one hundred and fifty miles 
nortlnvard from Los Angeles, one hundred miles eastward from 
Visalia, and twenty miles southeastward from Owen's Lake. 



GEOLOGY. 61 

Wood and water are very scarce. Little is known about the 
district as yet. The Coso and the Esmerelda districts are both 
in the Great Basin of Utah, and about five thousand feet above 
the level of the sea. 

It is said that rich silver-mines have been discovered in the 
valley of the Mojave River. 

In the Coast Mountains, in Monterey county, a silver-mine 
called Allisal has long been know^n to exist, but it is not rich 
enough to pay. Similar veins are found in the Coast Moun- 
tains, in Santa Cruz county. 

Veins of silver ore are also found in Nevada county. 

§ 41. Platinum. — Platinum, iridium, and osmium, are three 
white metals resembling steel, often found in the placer mines 
of California. They usually occur together ; and are found 
more abundantly in the lower part of the Klamath valley than 
in any other part of the state. In many districts they are 
entirely lacking. Platinum is found in lumps by itself; iridi- 
um and osmium are found united,' and are then called irid- 
osmium. These metals are found in small particles, usually 
fine scales ; the largest piece was of irid-osmium, found on the 
Lower Klamath, and weighed an ounce and a quarter. They 
are not found separate from the gold, nor are they ever the 
main object of search ; they are obtained in small quantities 
only, and are rarely bought and sold in the state ; they have 
no fixed market price. When mixed with gold-dust, they 
mjure its value, and prevent its reception at the mint on de- 
posit. 

§ 42. QidcJcsilver. — Tliere is probably no country in the 
world so rich in quicksilver as California. That metal is ob- 
tained only from its sulphuret or cinnabar, of which extensive 
deposits are found in Santa Clara county, about sixty miles 
southward from San Francisco, and fifteen miles from San 
Jose. There ai'e three mines here — the I^ew Alniaden, the 
Enriqueta, and the Guadalupe. The ore is found between trap 
on one side, and metamorphic limestone on the other. The 
mines are about one thousand feet above the level of the sea. 



62 EESOFECES OF OALIFOT^XIA. 

The gangiie or vein-stone is quartz. The ore varies in rich- 
ness from 5 to TO per cent.: the ore of the Ahnaden mine 
averages IS per cent. ; that of the Enriqiieta mine is about the 
same ; that of the Xew Idria mine is about 8 per cent. The 
lodes are extremely irreo-uhir ; sometimes there will be a mere 
thread, which will widen out into a mass forty feet in breadth, 
twenty high, and seventy long, of rich ore. and then diminish 
again to a thread. The total annual production of the state 
will probably amount to three million seven hundred thousand 
pounds, of which two million four hundred thousand at least 
"will come from New Ahnaden. The Xew Idria mines, in the 
Coast Mountains, about seventv-five miles southeastward from 
San Jose, furnish about three hundred and litty thousand 
pounds per annum. In Xapa county, on the slopes of Mount St. 
Helena, and in Sonoma comity, in the Geyser Mountains, west 
of Clear Lake, cinnabar has been found, and companies are 
now at work opening the mines. "Whether they will prove to 
be of value is as yet a matter of doubt. It is a singular fea- 
ture of the cinnabar veins in these two last-mentioned places, 
that they are accompanied by a porous limestone which is full 
of pure quicksilver ; and when the stone is shaken or struck, 
the liquid met;il flies out in minute globules. There have been 
rumors of discoveries" of cinnabar in other parts of the state, 
but they are not well authenticated. 

§ 43. Copper. — Copper ore has been found near Crescent 
City ; at Copper Canon, in the southwestern corner of Calave- 
ras county ; in San Diego county ; in Xapa county ; six miles 
below Grizzly Flat, in El Dorado coimty ; near Sweetland, in 
Nevada county ; and in Shasta county. Sulphuret of copper, 
or copper pyrites, is found in auriferous quartz-lodes in nearly 
all the mining counties. Xear Sweetland, Xevada county, 
there is a claim in which so much copper is fomid with the 
gold, that the dust is worth only eleven dollars per dunce. 
Ko copper has been smelted in the state ; the only attempts 
to mine for the ore have been at Copper Caiion, and on the 
bank of the Cosumnes River, below Grizzly Flat. Some of 



GEOLOGY. 63 

the Copper Canon ore has been exported. There are rich 
veins of copper-ore near Crescent City, in Del Xorte county ; 
but, with the present high prices of labor and coal, they cannot 
be profitably wrought. Vitreous copper is found at William- 
son's Pass, sixty miles from Los Angeles. 

§ 44. Goal. — The old red sandstone and the " true carbon- 
iferous" rocks, as they are called, are wanting in California; 
and it was long supposed that no valuable coal would ever be 
discovered in the state ; but within the last year some veins 
of a very good quality have been found near Mount Diablo. 
The mineral belongs to the tertiary epoch, but contains far 
more soUd combustible matter and less incombustible material 
than most tertiary coal. In the strict geological, meaning of 
the terms, it is not " coal," but " lignite," belonging to a later 
date than the true coal, and lying in a difierent formation. 
The rocks are sandstone and shale, of the upper tertiary or 
pliocene age, and were formed by alternating depositions in 
salt and fresh water. The coal-veins are situated on the north- 
eastern slope of Mount Diablo, are from two to nine feet in 
thickness, dip to the north at an average of 30°, and open on 
the southern declivities of the hills. A chemical analysis of 
some of the best specimens showed 50 per cent, of carbon, 46 
per cent, of volatile bituminous substances, and 4 per cent, of 
ashes. The coal is bituminous in character, breaks readily, 
shows a bright surface where fractured, and burns with a 
brilliant flame. The quantity is large, and it can be profitably 
supplied in San Francisco at eight dollars per ton, whereas 
imported coal has hitherto cost twice as much. 

§ 45. Asphalturu, — Bituminous springs are numerous near 
the coast, from the northern line of Monterey county to San 
Diego. They throw up a dark, pitch-like fluid, of a strong 
odor, which on exposure to the air grows thick, and finally 
solid. It collects in great masses about the springs, and in 
some places covers several acres of ground. After being ex- 
posed to the air for some time, it is called " asphaltum," which 
is very hard in cold weather, but grows soft at about 75°, and 



64 RESOTJECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

becomes liquid at 85°. Some springs of it rise in the sea, near 
San Diego, and others near Santa Barbara ; and masses of the 
asphaltum are seen floating many miles from shore. The air 
at sea is even scented with it, and on several occasions frights 
on shipboard have been caused by its odor, which was sup- 
posed to come from some hidden fire. 

The principal places in which these springs of asphaltum are 
found are the following: 

1. In the Santa Cruz Mountains, in the southeastern part of 
Santa Clara county. A tract of twenty-five acres is here cov- 
ered by the hardened asphaltum. 

2. In San Luis Obispo valley. The asphaltum covers thirty 
acres. 

3. The Napoma ranch, in San Luis Obispo county. The 
springs are small, and yield but little. 

4. On the ranch of La Purissima, in Santra Barbara coun- 

5. A place six miles west of the town of Santa Barbara. 
The deposit of asphaltum covers three hundred acres from two 
to eight feet thick. 

6. Kincon of San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara county. 

T. A place near the San Buenaventura River, twelve miles 
from its mouth, in Santa Barbara county. 

8. A place near the Santa Clara River, eighteen miles from 
its mouth, in Santa Barbara county. 

9. A place in the Sierra Santa Susanna, in Los Angeles 
county. 

10. In Los Angeles valley, Los Angeles county. 

11. The San Pedro Hills, in Los Angeles county. 

12. San Juan Capistrano, Los Angeles county. 

One of the deposits in Santa Barbara is so near the sea, that 
the mineral might be thrown with a shovel into a shute which 
would carry it into the hold of a vessel at anchor. 

A spring of mineral oil has been found in Mattole valley, 
Humboldt county. This is probably the same material with 
that of the asphaltum springs of the southern coast. 



i 



GEOLOGY. 65 

Tlie asphaltum generally comes up through sandstone. The 
springs of Santa Barbara seem to have ceased to flow, while 
those in Los Angeles county are still active. It is supposed 
that the amount lying on the surface at the various deposits is 
not less than five thousand tons. 

§ 46. Other Minerals. — Iron pyrites, or the sulphuret of 
iron, is found with gold in many of the quartz-veins. Iron is 
found also in a number of chalybeate springs. Iron-ore con- 
taining, it is said, 83 per cent, of metal, has been found near 
Auburn, in Placer county ; and the assessor of Shasta county, 
in his report for 1857, said "rich iron-ore" had been found in 
that county. Magnetic iron ore is found in the Canada de las 
Uvas, and at Williamson's Pass. 

Tin-ore, of the kind called " tin-stone," of a rich quality, has 
been found in, a large vein at Temascal, in San Bernardino 
county ; and it is reported that another lode of similar ch.arac- 
ter has been found in the valley of White River, Buena Vista 
county. 

Galena has been found in Humbug valley, Siskiyou county ; 
in Tuolumne county ; and on the banks of the Cosumnes Kiver, 
in El Dorado county. Plumbago has been discovered near 
Columbia, Tuolumne county. 

Cobalt is found, in various ores, in many counties in the 
state. 

At San Emidio, about twenty miles westward from Tejon 
Pass, is a rich and large lode of sulphuret of antimony ; the 
vein is from four to twelve feet thick, and is about six thou- 
sand feet above the level of the sea. 

Arsenic exists in many of the lodes of auriferous quartz, in 
the argentiferous lodes at Esmeralda and Coso, and in the an- 
timonial ore of San Emidio. 

Sulphur is abundant in California. It exists in large beds 
near the Geysers, in Sonoma county ; near Clear Lake, in 
Napa county ; in San Diego county, thirty miles northward 
from the town of that name, and twelve miles from the sea ; 
near the sea- shore, fifteen miles eastward from Santa Barbara; 
4* 



66 RESOTJKCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

in the valley of Santa Glara River, near its head ; and near 
San Juan Bautista, Monterey county. The most abundant and 
most accessible supph^ is that near Clear Lake. 

Alum is found in Santa Clara county, eastward of San Jose ; 
near Lancha Plana and Campo Seco, in Calaveras county ; at 
the Geysers, and at Owen's Lake. At the two last-named 
places there are hot alum-springs. 

Three miles above the forks of Clear Creek, in Shasta coun- 
ty, there are twenty salt-springs. 

Springs strong with sulphate of magnesia, or Epsom salts, 
are found at the Geysers. 

Chalk is found in Amador county and in Sonoma county. 

Suisun marble, the most beautiful form of sulphate of lime, 
is found in Solano county. Gypsum is found in Santa Cruz 
and Amador counties. Fine specimens of alabaster have been 
obtained in El Dorado and Monterey counties. 

Fine varieties of porcelain clay exist in many of the mining 
counties, particularly in Tuolumne. Clay, suitable for making 
fire-brick, mp-y be obtained near Kichmond, in Honey Lake 
valley. 

Chromium is found on the bank of Feather River, near the 
mouth of N^jlson Creek; near the town of Nevada; on the 
bank of Bear River, above Anson's Ferry ; and on the ridge 
between the North and Middle Forks of the American -River. 
Chrome iron is found in Monterey county. 

During the summer and fall, in many parts of the state, a 
saline efflorescence covers the earth, or those low parts of it 
where Avater collects during the rains of winter. This efflo- 
rescence is composed chiefly of carbonate and borate of soda, 
mixed with various other salts. The largest deposit of this 
kind is probably found at Soda Lake, at the sink of the Mojave 
River. 

California is very rich in borax, and the day is probably not 
far distant when we shall supply a large amount of it to com- 
merce. It is found in springs in Tehama county, and in springs 
And Jakes in Napa county. One of these lakes covers a lum- 



GEOLOGY. 67 

clrecl and fifty acres of ground, and is strong with the solution. 
In the mud at the bottom of this lake, the borax is found crys- 
tallized in large quantities. Boracic acid has been discovered 
in the sea-water near the coast. 

§ 47. Artesiaji Wells. — There are a great number of arte- 
sian wells in California. In Santa Clara county, within a dis- 
trict six miles wide by fifteen long, there are three hundred 
and eighteen — more than are to be foimd in any other district 
of equal size in the world. Their water is nearly all used to 
irrigate land ; some for manufacturing purposes. They supply 
about two million gallons in twenty-four hours. The Avells 
aie from fifty to four hundred feet deep; the bore varies from 
six to nine inches. Only a small portion of Santa Clara valley 
yields artesian water ; the artesian district lies north of a line 
commencing at Mountain View ; thence running nine miles 
with the road through the town of Santa Clara to San Jose ; 
and thence southeast to the mountains. South of this line no 
artesian water is found. 

It is supposed that the water comes from certain subterra- 
nean streams. One well has abundant water at one hundred 
feet ; another, not more than one hundred yards distant, has 
no water short of three hundred feet. The wells throw up 
living fish and shell-fish, which are of different species in dif- 
ferent w^ells. Some wells throw up soft-shell clams good to 
eat, and of a kind not found in the snperterrene waters of the 
state, before the opening of these artesian supplies. One well 
throAvs up a snail, with a long spiral shell ; another has snails 
with flat shells ; and others have blind fish, evidently of a spe- 
cies that has lived long in subterrene waters, and lost its eyes 
because it had no use for them. Like the fish of the Mammoth 
Cave, in Kentucky, these artesian fish have the eye-socket and 
a blind eye in it. The wells that produce these fish and shell- 
fish are mostly shallow, not more than one hundred and fifty 
feet deep. If put into water fresh fiom wells two hundred 
and fifty or three hundi'ed feet deep, they soon die, as do su- 
Derterrene fish ; either, it is supposed, because the water is 



68 KESOUECES OF CALIF OK XIA. 

too T\'arni, or because it has not enough air in it. The deeper 
the well, the warmer the water. 

Many of the wells have trone dry — " been drained bv other 
wells," as people say ; but vet how can one well " drain" an- 
other,, the mouths of both being on a level with each other? 
The wells whose mouths are at a lower level may take water 
from those farther up the valle}' ; but the theory that the 
water deserts one well, to flow out of another of equal or 
higher elevation, is not sound. There is very little difference 
of elevation, perhaps ten feet, between San Jose and Alviso ; 
and. the wells near the latter place throw their water about 
five feet higher above the surface than do those of the former. 
One cause of the failure of the wells may be the filling up of 
the pipes. From many of them great quantities of sand, 
gravel, and stones half a foot in diameter, have been thrown 
up ; and if a large stone should happen to lodge crosswise in 
the pipe, other smaller stones and gravel might soon stop it 
up entirely, or break the force of the current so that the water 
could not rise to the top. In many cases the pipe has not 
been driven down to the foundation ; and the water, whirling 
round at the bottom of the pipe, lias torn away the earth and 
made an excavation, thus preparing the way for a caving in 
of the ground, and filling up of the well- 
It is the general opinion in Santa Clara valley that the arte- 
sian wells have drained away the surface-water, and the soil is 
much drier than it was before the wells Mere bored. In 1849, 
Dr. Bascom found water west of Santa Clara by digging three 
feet ; and since then he has been going deeper every year, un- 
til now his surface-well is fifty feet deep. In Pellier's garden, 
at San Jose, the surface-water was six feet below the surface 
in 1849; now it is fourteen. Ten years ago, there was a con- 
stant stream of water along the Alameda, between Santa Clara 
and San Jose ; but that ditch has been entirely dry for several 
years. A multitude of such observations are mentioned ; yet 
there is no conclusive proof that the artesian wells have taken 
away the surface-water. It seems that the soil began to get 



GEOLOGY. * 69 

dry before these "wells were bored. The artesian wells cannot 
draw the water from the soil immediately around them, for 
they throw their waters above the earth ; it may be, however, 
that their supplies are derived from tlie soil in the upper part 
of the valley — supplies which, if the wells were not. there, 
would not be drained away into subterranean chaimels, but 
would go to moisten^ the whole valley. It is to be observed 
that, at the very time when the soil of the Santa Clara valley 
was becoming so dry, a similar disappearance of the surface- 
water Avas noticed far beyond the influence of the artesian wells 
— Honey Lake, on the plateau of the Sierra Nevada, and Lake 
Elizabeth, in the Great Basin, both disappearing about the 
same time, in 1859 ; and several other little lakes and ponds 
in other parts of the country following tlieir example, soon 
after. 

There are artesian wells at various places in the state besides 
Santa Clara valley, but they offer nothing new in a geological 
point of view. 

§ 48. Paleontology. — It is a general rule, that the animals 
of former geological eras, in any given district, appear to have 
been the gigantic ancestors of those of the present time. Thus 
the kangaroo and emu of Australia, found in no other part of 
the world, were preceded by gigantic kangaroos and emus, 
whose fossil remains are found in New Holland only. So, too, 
South America, in antediluvian times, had gigantic sloths and 
tapirs, akin to the animals now found within her limits. Each 
continent has a fiiuna of its own, to which its antediluvian ani- 
mals were nearly akin. Every continent has sevei'al zoological 
districts ; and the ancient and modern fauna of thesp districts 
are sometimes as clearly related to each other, and as distinctly 
separate from those of other parts of the continent, as are the 
fauna of different continents from each other. But the ante- 
diluvian animals of California possessed no peculiar relation- 
ship to the animals now indigenous in the state: the former 
fauna was totally distinct from that of the present age ; the 
fossil bones found are not numerous, and no large and valuable 



TO EESOUECES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

skeletons have been brought to light — only fragments here and 
there. Of quadrupeds, we have the remains of a mastodon, an 
elephant, and a new species of horse. Of birds and reptiles, 
nothing noteworthy has been found. We have no entire fossil 
fishes, but a few teeth. Dr. W. O. Ayres found near Pit River 
the teeth of a shark, of the genus Lamna — a genus now extinct 
on this coast. There are numerous beds of marine shells, the 
most remarkable being on the shores of San Pablo Bay, on the 
sides of Mount Diablo, and on the slopes of the Sierra Nevada. 
In the bluffs of the coast, near the Lake House, are shells iden- 
tical with those now found alive in the vicinity. All our fossils 
are of the tertiary period, save a few ammonites of the second- 
ary era, found in the northern part of the state. 

§ 49. Belies of Early Humanity. — In May, 1859, an Indian 
arrow-head was found, eighty feet below the surface of the 
earth, at Buckeye Hill, Nevada county. About the same time, 
another arrow-head was found three feet deep, in undisturbed 
alluvium, near Freeman's Crossing, in the same county. 

In April, 1859, the skeleton of a man Ava»- found sixteen feet 
deep, at Tehachepe, in Los Angeles county. 

In October, 1855, two stone mortars,' such as were used by 
the Indians for grinding acorns and grass-seeds, were found 
near Diamond Springs, El Dorado county, at a dej^th of one 
hundred feet below the surfice. 

In October, 1854, the skeletons of two men were found at 
Rattlesnake Bar, fourteen feet below the surface, and under 
ancient strata, which had apparently not been disturbed from 
the time of their deposition. 

These are a few only of the fossil evidences that California 
has been inhabited by men many thousands of years. 

§ 50. Mineral Springs. — Mineral springs are very numer- 
ous in California. The greatest number are found in the coast 
valleys, from latitude 40° southward to 32°. Nearly every 
little vale has one or more ; many of them warm or hot. The 
most common temperatures range from 60° to 120°. Some of 
these springs yield a large quantity of water, and are in ro- 



GEOLOGY. '71 

mantic sites, destined to become places of fashionable resort 
when our population grows dense. There are so many of 
these springs in the state that there is not room here to men- 
tion them all. 

In San Bernardino valley there are a number of warm 
springs. Their temperatures are thus reported: 108°, 128°, 
130°, 16G°, 169°, and 172°. The heat of the springs at Aguas 
Calientes, in San Diego county, is thus given: 58°, 74°, 130°, 
136°, and 140°. 

Near Warner's ranch, in San Diego, is a spring with a tem- 
perature of 135°, rising from a cleft in the granite rock. 

§ 51. Cortes Shoal. — About one hundred miles west of San 
Diego is Cortes Shoal, twenty miles long and three miles 
wide, with a depth of only fifteen feet in one place. This 
shoal is evidently the summit of a submarine ridge of moun- 
tains, parallel with the other ridges of the coast. The shoal 
was discovered in December, 1852, by Captain Cropper, of the 
steamship Cortes, who asserted that there was evidently a sub- 
marine volcano in operation there. The water was in violent 
commotion, and at intervals was thrown up into the air in col- 
umns ; there was an escape of steam, and he suddenly found 
the depth of water chaiige from forty-five to nine fathoms. 
He saw also light and smoke, and at one time tlie place looked 
as though it were a ship on fire. The general opinion is, that 
he saw only the waves breaking upon the Bishop Rocks, as the 
rocks at the shallowest place are called ; but some persons ad- 
here to his opinion of a submarine volcano. 

Note. — The chief writers upon the Geology of Cahfornia are W. P. Blake, 
J. S. Newberry, an 1 Jules Marcou, in the United States Pacific Railroad Sur- 
vey reports, and Dr. J. B. Trask's reports to the state legislature, and Jules 
Marcou's book on the Geology of North America. For the chemical fineness 
of the gold in the various mining districts, I am indebted to Henry Yan Valk- 
enburg. 



72 - RESOURCES OF CALIFOENIA. 



CHAPTER IV. 

S C E N^ E R Y. 

§ 52. Introductory. — California has much beautiful scenery. 
The atmosphere is remarkably clear, giving the eye a wide 
range. The mountainous character of the state not only pre- 
vents monotony and secures a rich variety of landscapes, but 
gives them extent and grandeur. The large rivers, the high 
snow-peaks and ridges, wide bays, forests of the largest and 
most graceful evergreens, parks of majestic oaks, natural mead- 
ows covered in the spring with brilliant grasses and flowers, 
are all magnificent in their kind. The valleys are mostly bare 
of timber, with here and there a grove of oaks, and lines 
of trees and bushes along the water courses. The coast val- 
leys are very beautiful, and in the course^of ten or fifteen 
years, when ornamented with thorough cultivation, will be as 
pretty as any places in the world. Sonoma, Napa, Amador, 
San Ramon, and Sunol valleys may be made as beautiful as 
any part of the world. 

§ 53. Coast Valleys. — Xapa valley, which is now the most 
beautiful of these valleys, because most thickly settled and 
most thoroughly cultivated, is thirty miles long, five miles wide 
at its mouth, gradually growing narrower toward the head. 
ISTapa River, a small stream, runs through the whole length 
of the valley, which is of level land, bounded on both sides by 
steep mountains, about two thousand feet high. These moun- 
tains, brf;\vn near the foreground and blue in the distance, oak 
groves, brilliant laurel and madroiia, fields of wheat and bar- 
ley, ploughed fields, good fences, elegant farm-houses, and nu- 
merous gardens and orchards, go to make up the landscape. 



SCENEET. 78 

Tlie valley should be seen from the moimtain-top, wlience it 
appears spread out as level as a floor. The fields, differhig in 
color according to the season and their condition of cultiva- 
tion, lie like a great checker-board, over which are scattered 
numerous firm-lioui^es, and irregular streaks of timber mark- 
ing the position of the river and its tributaries. The oak-trees 
form a most important part of the scene. They are wide in 
proportion to their height, thick in the trunk, heavy in the 
main boughs, many of which have a horizontal or downward 
course. The top of the tree has the semicircular shape, and the 
smaller branches have the pendant grace seen in the Eastern 
states only in the elm. The large npper boughs of the Cali- 
fornian white-oak have at their extremities some branches or 
twigs that hang perpendicularly down from three to twenty 
feet, and many of the trees for this reason look in the summer 
as though they were covered with vines. Add to these pecu- 
liarities the abundant gray Spanish moss, hanging like long 
and venerable beards from all the twi2:s and bouo^hs, and 
the dark druidical mistletoe, and we have one of the most 
important and characteristic features of the Californian land- 
scape. 

Sunol valley, a little dale about three miles in diameter, 
nearly circular in shape, and shut in on all sides by mountains, 
is destined to become famous at some future day for"its beauty. 
Now it is in a state of nature, but art will give it new charms. 

The places in the state most visited on account of their nat- 
ural scenery are the Yosemite valley, the big-tree groves, and 
the Geysers. 

§ 54. Yosemite Valley. — Yosemite valley is a dell of match- 
less cliffs and cascades, with more scenes of grandeur and 
beauty than can be found within an equal space in any other 
part of the world. Shut in closely by walls of rock almost 
perpendicular, from two thousand to four thousand five hun- 
dred feet high, it has within a radius of five miles five cas- 
cades, one of which is two thousand feet high, another nine 
hundred and forty, another seven hundred, another six hun- 



Y4 RESOUKCES OF CALIFORXIA. 

drecl, and another three hundred and fifty, and their waters 
flow through a natural meadow ornamented by beautiful trees 
and brilliant verdure. 

The valley is a chasm in the Sierra Xevada, four thousand 
feet above the level of the sea, and distant about one hundred 
and twenty miles in a direct line from San Fiancisco, and in a 
nearly due eastward direction. It is watered by the main 
branch of the Merced River, which above and below makes 
its way through the mountains in deep and dark gorges, the 
bottom of which is rarely seen by the sunlight. The valley is 
ten miles long and nearly three wide in the middle, from which 
it decreases each way. It is bounded on all sides by walls of 
yellowish granite, from two thousand to four thousand feet 
high, in some places perjiendicular, and everywhere precipit- 
ous. It is only at the ends of the valley that it is possible for 
travellers to get in or out of it, and even there the entrance 
and exit are difficult for horses and impossible for wagons. 

The general course of the valley is east and west. The main 
entrance is at the western end, where a steep path leads down 
a descent of two thousand five hundred feet. The view from 
the ridge overlooking the valley is splendid. The chasm is 
seen winding away amidst the clifi*s; a cascade is in sight, and 
numerous mountain-peaks rise in various directions. At the 
bottom of the dell are seen the meandering river, the green 
grass, and lofty trees diminished to the appearance of shrubs. 
The waterfall seen on the right several miles distant, is a mere 
white streak on the face of the rock, and does not appear grand 
in the least, but it is nine hundred and forty feet high, and be- 
comes imposing as the traveller approaches it. The body of 
water is about seventy feet wide on the first of June. The fall 
is called the Cascade of the Rainbow, from the beautiful colors 
which always, in sunlight, adorn the mist floating about it. 

Nearly opposite this cascade, on the northern side of the 
valley, and about three-quarters of a mile distant, but apparently 
much nearer when the tourist looks up at it, is the Capitan (or 
Captain), a rock which projects into the valley and rises up 



SCENERY. To 

perpendicularly from the level green-sward three thousand and 
ninety feet. Continuing our course up the valley, we come 
soon to another high peak on the same side of the valley, 
known as the Signal Rock, two thousand nine hundred and 
twenty-eight feet high. Four miles above the Rainbow cas- 
cade we come to the great falls of tlie Yosemite, where the 
stream of that name, eighty feet wide, leaps down two thou- 
sand and sixty-three feet in three falls, of which the first is 
one thousand three hundred feet high, the next two hundred 
and fifty, and the third four hundred and fifty. About three 
hundred feet from the top of the upper fall there is a project- 
mg ledge on which the stream In-caks when the water is low, 
but up to the middle of June, wliile the current is large and 
swift with melted snow, the great body of the water leaps 
clear of the ledge, and pitches sheer down into the hell of rocks 
below. The Yosemite fall, sometimes c.alh d by the Indian 
name of "Cholook," is, in so far as height is concerned, the 
greatest cataract in the world; but it does not impress the 
observer like Niagara. The body of water, never large, is 
almost lost in spray before reaching the bottom ; and in the 
late summer, the stream dries up entirely. Niagara is sublime, 
overwhelming the soul ^\it]l the idea of power ; Yosemite is 
beautiful and romantic — that is all. The tremendous precipices 
here, as throughout the valley, are greater and more impres- 
sive than the cascades, which have not enough water to con- 
found. Besides, the falls cannot be approached from those 
points whence they might be seen to the greatest advantage ; 
and looking from a distance, the Yosemite somewhat resem- 
bles a great sheet of white satin hanging over the clift'. But 
inferior as this one cascade is to Niagara, the valley, taking 
all its scenery together, is far superior in variety and romantic 
beauty, and equal in grandeur. A day or two at Niagara is 
enough ; while a lover of nature may stay at Yosemite for 
months and continually find new delights in the study of the 
scenery. I have given tlie total height of the three falls of 
the Yosemite, all of which are very near together, at two thou- 



76 EESOUCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

sand and sixty-three feet, which is the figure given by the offi- 
cial surveyor of that county ; but others have estimated the 
height at two thousand three hundred and two thousand five 
hundred feet. 

Across from the Yosemite Falls, on the southern side of the 
valley, is the Pyramid Rock, so named from the shape which 
it bears when seen from some points of view. It is three 
thousand two hundred feet high. Three miles further up and 
at the head of the valley is "Mirror or Tocoya Lake," a beau- 
tiful body of water covering about eight acres. The northern 
side of this lake washes the foot of the North Dome, a hnge 
mountain of rock crowned with a dome-like knob, three thou- 
sand six hundred and thirty feet high ; and near the southern 
edge of the lake is the perpendicular face of the South Dome, 
a still higher mountain, which rises up four thousand four hun- 
dred and eighty-one feet, towering above all the peaks in the 
vicinity. This peak is a sublime sight, with its perpendicular 
wall, which, as you look up at it, seems as if it would keep 
going up forever. 

Windmg back now along the southern side of the valley, we 
soon come to the southern fork of the Merced River, which 
rushes down through a gorge. We ascend this gorge on foot, 
climbiniT with iireat labor over rocks and throuixh the brush- 
wood, and at the distance of a mile and a half come to the 
Vernal or Canopah Falls, where the stream, about one hun- 
dred feet wide, falls three hundred and fifty feet into a basin 
surmounted by large evergreen trees. This cascade possesses 
one o-reat advanta2:e over all the others of the Yosemite val- 
ley, and that is, it can be approached from above, where we 
look down upon it from the top of the granite cliff, leaning 
over a natural parapet of rock, as convenient as though made 
expressly for the accommodation of picturesque tourists. 

About half a mile above the Vernal Fall the river takes a 
another leap, called the Nevada or Awanee Falls, but it costs 
a mile and a half of rounda1)out clambering to get to it. The 
fall is seven hundred feet high, half of which the water shoots 



SCENERY. ' 17 

plumb down through the uir, and strikes the projecting rock, 
' breaking into spray. 

AI)oiit two miles west of Nevada Falls is the cascade of Tu- 
sayac, about six hundi'ed feet high, but it is very difficult of 
access. 

A few hundred yards above Lake Tocoya is Lake Tesahae, 
' which has an area, of about six acres, and is forty feet deep. 

No description can convey a clear idea of the great variety 
of scenery in the valley. There are a thousand nooks and cor- 
ners and Avoody dells, full of enchanting picturesqueness. 
The rocky cliffs take all manner of queer forms, resembling 
pyramids, castles, and domes, chimneys and spires. Li one 
place there is a nari'ow cleft one hundred feet deep in one of 
the rocks, as though some giant had commenced to split off 
part of the mountain and had left his work unfinished. 

The river, as it meanders through the valley, is a great ad- 
dition to its beauty ; and its waters, as well as those of the 
lakes, are clear as crystal in the summer, though turbid in the 
spring. Mountain trout are found in all these streams. 

The climate of the valley is cool. The numerous cascades 
agitate the air, and near the fall there are often gusty winds. 

There is much difference between the vegetation and tem- 
perature of the two sides of the valley; the northern side, 
where the sunshine is felt throughout the day, being niiich 
warmer than the shadows of the southern cliffs. Shrubs arid 
flowers are in the full glory of foliage, and flower along the 
northern w^all in May and June, while the same species are 
still bare or budding a mile or two to the southward ; but the 
more delicate annual shrubs are usually more healthy on the 
southern than on the northern side of the stream, because 
those in the warmer spots are stimulated to come out so early 
as to be badly nipped by the frosts, which prevail here all 
through the spring and into the summer, i'he valley is almost 
inaccessible, on account of snow, before the middle of May, 
and the best time for a visit is in June. In the late summer 
and fall the quantity of water in these streams decreases 



7a EESOUECES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

greatly, and the Yosemite cascade becomes a mere trickling 
brooklet. 

There are a couple of houses for the accomm.odation of trav- 
ellers, but the fashionable way with those w^ho visit the valley 
is to go iu parties on horseback, provided with pack animals, 
carrying tent, bedding, provisions, and cooking utensils along. 
Ladies dress in the Bloomer style. Wagons do not come 
Avithin forty miles of the valley. There are some quail and 
hare, but no larger game. The dell was inhabited by a war- 
Uke tribe of red men eight years ago, but they undertook to 
fight with the whites and have all been cut oif, and scarcely a 
sign of their existence remains, save here and there the dim 
vestige of a trail. 

The valley was first entered by white men iu 1848, if rumor 
be true, and afterward in 1850 and 1852, but its wonders at- 
tracted no notice from the press, and were unknown to the 
public until 1854, and did not attract many visitors until 185G. 

§ 55. Mcmiinoth Tree Groves. — The next great natural 
wonder of California is the big-tree grove in Mariposa 
county. It is a grove of four hundred and twenty-seven 
mammoth trees, the largest of which are thirty feet in diame- 
ter and three hundred feet in height. This is the largest spe- 
cies of tree in the world, and this is the largest grove of them. 
The grove is about twenty miles from the Yosemite valley, 
and thirty miles southeast of the town of Mariposa, and about 
four thousand five hundred feet high on the western slope of 
the Sierra Nevada. When the traveller enters the grove he 
sees on all sides of him numerous giants of the forest, varying 
from twenty to thirty-four feet in diameter, and from two hun- 
dred and seventy-five to three hundred and twenty-five feet 
in heio-ht. Sublime si^^ht ! Each tree fills him with wonder 
as he looks at it. A glance at" one of these immense trunks 
conveys a new idea of the magnificence of nature; '^glorious 
as the universe on creation's morn" is this grove. The Titans 
and' the gods fought with such tree-trunks as these for clubs, 
when the attempt was nuide to carry heaven by storm, as re- 



SCENERY. 79 

corded in Grecian mythology. The trees are so high that you 
must look twice before you can see their tops, and then you 
must keep on looking before you can comprehend their height. 
The best way to see them is to lie down and look up, and re- 
member that the spire of the New York Trinity Church, wliich 
is the highest artificial structure in the United States, tower- 
ing far above all the rest of the American metropolis, though 
two hundred and eighty-four feet high, would be entirely lost 
to distant view if set down among these trees. 

The grove covers a space half a mile wide and three-quar- 
ters of a mile long. Classifying its trees according to their 
size, we find that there is one tree thirty-four feet in diameter; 
two trees of thirty-three feet ; thirteen between twenty -five 
and thirty-three ; thirty-six between twenty and twenty-five ; 
eighty- two between fifteen and twenty; making a total of one 
hundred and thirty-four trees between fifteen and thirty-four 
feet in diameter ; and then there are two hundred and ninety- 
three between one and fifteen feet through. 

One very large tree has fallen, and a considerable portion 
of it has been burned ; but appearances indicate that it was 
nearLy forty feet in diameter, and fonr hundred feet high. 

The Mammoth Tree is a cone-beariiig evergreen, belonging 
to the botanical genus named Gvpressus (cypress) by Linnaeus. 
After the time of that naturalist, his genus of the Cupressiis 
was divided ; so that the Mammoth Tree would have come 
under the head of the Taxodlum^ which, about the year 1850, 
was again divided by Endlicher, the German botanist, and the 
redwood-tree was declared to belong to a new genus, called 
Sequoia. 

In 1853, the mammoth trees first came to the notice of the 
public. The botanists in San Francisco, engaged in the tur- 
aioil of business, looked at the specimens, but had not time to 
examine them, and supposed tliem to be of the same^ species 
with the redwood, to which the mammotli tree certainly does 
jear a very close resemblance. Thinking the tree, however, 
jC be very remarkable on account of its great size, they sent 



80 KESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

some of its cones, leaves, and wood, to botanists in 'New York, 
but they were unfortunately lost on the way. A few months 
later, an English collector sent some specimens to Professor 
Lindley, who not only found the tree to be of a new species, 
but determined to make a new genus of it, and he affixed to it 
the name WelUngtonia gigaiitea. When the news of the se- 
lection of this name arrived in California, a foolish and preten- 
tious fellow, who meddled with matters of science of w^hich he 
knew nothing, wrote a ranting article against Lindley, for try- 
ing to confer the honor of the great tree of America upon a 
Briton like Wellington, and declaring that the only proper 
title for the tree w^ould be 'Washingtonia gigantea. If there 
had been any bad taste in conferring the name of a Tory and 
a man of blood ujdou such a magnificent tree, still the rules of 
botanical nomenclature are well established, and the matter of 
the name is left entirely to the discretion of the man who first 
gives a technical description of the plant and determines its 
genus. American botanists, therefore, never recognized the 
name Washingt07iia^ because Lindley's name was of undoubt- 
ed priority ; and to acknowledge the priority, and yet recognize 
the WashingtoJiia^ would be equivalent to proving their own 
stupidity. And yet English botanists have, in scientific rec- 
ords, accused American botanists and "Americans" of making 
an agitation to establish the name as WasJmigtonia. These 
facts are part of the history of botany, and facts of interest 
relating to the big trees. 

The general opinion among botanists is, that Lindley was 
wrong in declaring the mammoth tree to be of a new genus : 
it is a Sequoia, related in the closest manner to the redwood. 
When the redwood and the mammoth tree come to be held 
as of a distinct genera, then nearly every difierence heretofore 
considered merely specific may be made the basis for establish- 
ino; new erenera. Dr. Seeman called the mammoth tree the 
Sequoia gigantea, and it bears that name with botanists gen- 
erally. 

The Sequoias arc found only in California; the Sequoia 



SCENERY 81 

gigardea only on tbe western slope of the Sierra Nevada, be- 
tween latitudes 34° and 41°. The tree has the great pecu- 
liarity that it bears two kinds of leaves : those on the young 
trees, and on the lower branches of larger ones, are about five- 
eighths of an inch long and an eighth wide, and are set in pairs 
opposite each other, on little stems ; the other Jiinds of leaves, 
growing on the branches which have borne flowers, are trian- 
gular, about an eighth of an inch long, and they lie close down 
to the stem. The cones are not much larger than a hen's Qgg-, 
whereas the cones of many smaller conifers of the coast are 
larger than pine-apples. The seeds of the Sequoia gigantea 
are not more than a quarter of an inch long, a sixth wide, and 
almost as thin as writing-paper. The bark is reddish-brown 
in color, of a coarse, dry, stringy, elastic substance, and very 
thick — on the largest trees not less than eighteen inches. The 
wood is soft, elastic, straight-grained, free-splitting, light when 
dry, and red in color. It bears a close resemblance to red cedar, 
but the grain is not quite so even. The wood is very durable. 
The mammoth tree grows in a deep, fertile soil, and is al- 
ways surrounded by a dense growth of other evergreens, such 
as various species of pine, fir, spruce, and Californian cedar, 
Tlie scenery in these forests is beautiful. The trees grow^ very 
close together ; and the trunks, usually from a foot to two feet 
in diameter, rise in perfect perpendicularity, and wilh little or 
no diminution of size, more than a hundred feet without a 
limb : and while all is perfect stillness and rest and shadow on 
the ground, the traveller, looking to where the sunbeams are 
perceptible here and there on the thick foliage, can see the 
flexible tops swinging from side to side in the roaring moun- 
tain-breeze. The soil, being never visited by the sun, is always 
moist, and produces a luxuriant and beautiful little undergrowth 
of mosses, flowers, and berries. When in such forests, I have 
at times compared myself to a merman, who, while at the bot- 
tom of the ocean, amid a large growth of queer sea-weed, and 
surrounded by beautiful shells and the treasures of a thou- 
sand wrecks, should look from his abode of peace, and see 



82 EESOTJRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

the surface of the water, far above hini, raging in a terrific 
storm. 

Many young trees of the Sequoia gigantea^ produced from 
the seed, are growing in gardens in California, in the Eastern 
states, and in Europe. 

The mammoth tree is found only in a few small groves, of 
which six or seven are known, though probably there are 
many in unexplored parts of the Sierra Nevada. Three of 
these groves are in Mariposa county, one in Calaveras, one in 
Tuolumne, and one in Tulare. 

The three Mariposa groves are within two miles of each 
other. The second one in size contains eighty-six trees ; the 
third thirty-five. The Tuolumne grove contains ten trees, one 
or two of which are said to be thirty-five feet in diameter. 

The Calaveras mammoth grove was the first discovered, and 
attracts the greatest number of visitors. There are in this 
grove ten trees thirty feet in diameter, and eighty-two between 
fifteen and thirty, making ninety-two over fifteen feet through. 
One of the trees, which is down, must have been four hundred 
and fifty feet high and forty feet in diameter. The " Horse- 
back ride," one of the notabilities of the place, is a hollow 
trunk, Avhich a man can ride upright through on horseback, 
seventy-five feet. 

In 1854, one of the largest trees, ninety-two feet in circum- 
ference and three hundred feet high, was cut down. Five men 
worked twenty-two days in cutting through it with large au- 
gers. On the stump, which has been smoothed ofi", there have 
been dancing-parties and theatrical performances; and for a 
time a newspaper, called the JBig Tree Jjulletin, was printed 
there. 

At the same time that this tree was cut down, another was 
stripped of its bark for a distance of one hundred and sixteen 
feet from the ground. This tree contiimed green and flourish- 
ing two and a half years after being thus denuded, and did not 
begin to sliow signs of dying until a very hard frost came in 
the winter of 1850-57. Although seven years have passed 



SCENERY. 83 

since its bark was stripped off, some of its branches are yet 
green. 

A section of bark and part of the wood of tlie felled tree 
are now in the English Crystal Palace. The rings of this tree 
were counted ; and its age was variously estimated, according 
to the different methods of counting, at from nineteen hundred 
to three thousand years. Probably its age was about two 
thousand years. It sprouted wliile Rome was in her glory. 
It is older than any kingdom, language, or creed, of Europe 
or America. It was a large tree before the foundation of the 
Christian Church, and was fifteen hundred years old before 
the period of modern civilization began. Twenty centuries 
look down upon the tourist from the tops of the larger trees; 
and some of the little ones will still flourish for a thousand 
years from now, when all our present kingdoms and I'epublics 
shall have disappeared, and our political and social systems 
shall have been swept away as fidl of evil, and replaced by 
other and better systems, under which men will live in civilized 
society without each being forced to rob his brother by means 
more or less legal and respectable. 

In many of the trees in all the groves, hollows are burned 
at the foot, and some of them have been burned so as to stand 
on three legs. One of these, in the Calaveras grove, called 
"Uncle Tom's Cabin," has an open space under it of more 
than a dozen feet square. The largest trees seem to end ab- 
ruptly at the top, having been broken oft' by the snow, which 
often falls to a great depth so high up on the Sierra Nevada. 
The trees, in some places, grow very near together ; in others, 
they are comparatively far apart ; and occasionally two or three 
will be seen which are united at the ground, although they 
may have been twenty or thirty feet apart when they sprouted. 

It is said that the big-tree grove of Tulare county is eight 
miles long, and contains larger trees than either Calaveras or 
Mariposa, the largest measuring one hundred and twejity-three 
feet in circumference twelve feet above the ground. We have, 
however, no detailed description of this grove. 



► 84 KESO URGES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 56. Geysers. — The Geysers, in the northern part of Sono- 
nui county, are among the wonders of the state. They are in 
a deep and steep ravine, amid a district filled with the marks 
of violent volcanic action. Down the western slope of the 
momitains which separate Clear Lake from the basin of Rus- 
sian River, runs a stream called the Pluton River ; and near 
this are the Geysers, a multitude of springs, boiling with heat, 
and emitting large quantities of steam, with a hissing, roaring, 
and sputtering noise. Near them are many tepid and cold 
springs, which add to the wonderful character of the place. 
Hot and cold springs, quiet and boiling springs, are found 
within a few feet of each other. And then the waters differ 
as much in taste, odor, and color, as in temperature and action. 
One is almost as fetid at times as rotten eggs ; another has 
black water, resembling ink ; a third is called the " Eye-water 
Spring," and its waters are reputed to be excellent for curing 
sore eyes and cutaneous diseases ; and the waters of others 
are strongly purgative. The ground in the ravine is in places 
deeply covered with the minerals deposited by the springs : 
among these, sulphur, sulphate of magnesia (Epsom salts), sul- 
phate of aluminum (alum), and various salts of iron, predomi- 
nate. 

The chief feature of the Geysers is called " The Steampipe," 
an orifice about eight inches in diameter, in the hill-side, from 
which rises a large volume of steam to a height varying from 
fiity to two hundred feet. The steam roars continuously, 
sometimes bursting out in pufts louder than that made by the 
general-escape pipe. It deposits flowers of sulphur on the 
objects which come within its range. 

'' The Devil's Punch-Bowl," called also " The Witches' Caul- 
dron," is in a large hole, six feet across, in the hill-side. The 
liauid in the boAvl is black and thick, and is always in commo- 
tion with the heat, and the vapor from it deposits black flow- 
ers of sulphur on the rocks around. 

The sides of the canon are bare, and smoking with heat. 
The Geysers are a favorite place of resort for pleasure-seekers 



SCENERY. 85 

in tlie state. They are seventeen hundred feet above the level 
of the sea. 

§ 57. 3fud- Volcanoes. — In the Colorado Desert, about lati- 
tude 33° 25', and longitude 115° 45', are some remarkable 
mud-volcanoes. They are in that part of the desert below the 
level of the sea ; and if the water of the ocean were turned in 
upon that low land, they Avould be lost to sight. As it is now, 
they are very rarely visited, because they are in a region so 
desolate, that an excursion to them is accompanied by serious 
liard ships. The volcanoes cover a space a quarter of a mile 
long and an eighth of a mile wide ; this area is of soft mud, 
through which hot water and steam are constantly escaping. 
The noise can be heard at a distance of ten miles, and the 
steam is visible at a greater distance. The quantity of water 
throwTi up is small ; that of the steam great. The vapor rises 
steadily in some places, with a hissing noise ; in other places 
it bursts out with the noise and action of an explosion, throw- 
ing the mud a hundred feet into the air, with a loud report. 

There are places where the mud is in constant movement) 
and rises in great bubbles, and bursts as if boiling w4th intense 
heat ; while in other places regular cones, apparently hardened 
into permanency, and with shapes varying from low hillocks 
to sharp points, have been formed. There are boiling springs 
■which throw up their water twenty or thirty feet ; and there 
are large basins, one hundred feet across, and five or six feet 
below the general surfice, in Avliich a bluish paste is continu- 
ally boiling. Some of the springs are surrounded by incrusta- 
tions and arborescent concretions of carbonate of lime; others 
are encircled by deposits of sulphur. The air blown fi-om the 
salses is fetid with sulphur. It is very dangerous to approach 
the springs and cauldrons, because the whole earth is soft in 
the vicinity of them, and frequently the crust is broken and 
thrown up with great force, to establish new springs, steam- 
vents, and mud-cauldrons ; and the boiling slime or w\ater 
thrown up on these occasions would suffice to kill a man in a 
few seconds. 



86 RESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 58. Santa Cruz Ruins. — Fifteen miles northeastward from 
the town of Santa Cruz are "The Ruins," as they are called — 
forty and odd perpendicular cylinders of sandstone, from a foot 
to two feet in diameter, with holes from six to fourteen inches 
wide running through them. These cylinders were discovered 
in 1855, in a bed of sand, on the side of a sandstone mountain, 
and were at first supposed to be the remains of some woi-k of 
human hands: whence their name of "The Ruins." Much 
curiosity was excited by their discovery, and a number of men 
were employed to dig away the sand, so as to expose the foun- 
dation on which the cylinders stood. The excavation was car- 
ried down in one place to the depth of forty feet, and the base 
of the column was found to rest on the bed-rock sandstone. 
The surface of the rock was sloping and rough, and there was 
nothing to indicate the work of man. It is now supposed that 
the cylinders were deposited by mineral springs, although it is 
believed that no similar columns have been formed elsewhere, 
the elevations made by mineral springs being, with this excep- 
tion alone, shaped like hillocks or cones — never like cylinders. 
The theory of deposition by springs may be the best mode of 
explaining their existence, but it is not satisfactory : the cyl- 
inders rise perpendicularly, or nearly so, and are very little 
tliicker at the base than at the top ; some of them preserve the 
same thickness from bottom to top. The material of the shafts 
diifers from that of the bed-rock by being coarser and darker. 
And besides, the texture apj)ears in places to have a spiral 
form, as though it had been made of a thick paste, rolled up 
spirally into a cylinder, and then hardened into a solid ; leav- 
ing, however, a plain trace of the manner in which it was 
made. And some pieces, which have been broken oft', suggest 
such a mode of formation. 

§ 59. Mirage. — Among the most remarkable scenes wit- 
nessed in California are the illusions of the mirage in the des- 
erts of the Colorado and the Great Basin. "All the phenomena 
of mirage," says Professor W. P. Blake, " are exhibited on a 
grand scale upon the Colorado Desert. Mountain-ranges, so 



SCENEKY. 87 

I 

far distant as to be below the horizon, are made to rise into 
view in distorted and chano;inQ: outlines. Inverted imagoes of 
smaller objects, and apparent lakes of clear water, are often 
seen, and invite the traveller to turn aside for refreshment. 
Tlie first exliibition of mirage that was seen [by Blake's party] 
was from the margin of the plain at Carriso Creek, looking 
toward the Gila, about ninety miles distant. It was early in 
the morning, and the eastern sky had that golden hue which 
precedes the vising sun. Tall blue columns, and the spires of 
churches, and overhanging precipices, seemed to stand npon 
the verge of the plain. Their outlines were changing gradu- 
ally, and, as the sun rose higher, they were slowly dissipated. 
After reaching Fort Yuma, and witnessing the strangely pre- 
cipitous and pinnacled outline of the mountains beyond, it was 
at once apparent that the mirage consisted of their distorted 
images. When we were upon the northern part of the desert, 
the peak of Signal Mountain was often distorted and raised 
above the horizon. The points of distant ranges also seemed 
at times to be elevated above the surface, precisely as the 
headlands of a coast sometimes appear to rise above the water 
at sea. 

"Many of the phenomena called mirage are not due to re- 
fraction, but are believed to be the result of reflection from 
the sand, or smooth surflice of clay, or the polished pebbles. 
The smooth clay forms an excellent reflector for all the rays 
which are incident at a slight angle, and is most frequently 
the cause of the appearance of water. The beautiful surface 
of the pebbly plain may be regarded as a combination of myr- 
iads of reflectors; for each pebble is so highly polished, that it 
reflects light almost like a mirror. The reflection from such a 
brilliant surface, when seen at a favorable angle, looks like a 
sheet of water, the similarity being heightened by the motion 
of the stratum of heated air in contact with the surfoce." 

Tlie phenomena of mirage are frequently witnessed in the 
Sacramento Basin, and also in the coast valleys, on warm, dry 
days. 



88 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 60. Caves. — There are a number of caves in California. 
Of these the most noted are the Alabaster Cave, seven miles 
from Auburn, in Placer county ; the Bower Cave, twelve miles 
from Coulterville, in Mariposa county ; the Cave of Skulls, in 
Calaveras county; and the Santa Cruz Cave, two miles from 
the town of Santa Cruz. The Alabaster Cave has two cham- 
bers : one about one hundred feet long by twenty-five wide ; 
the other two hundred feet long by one hundred wide. It 
contains a large number of brilliant stalactites and stalagmites. 
The Bower Cave has a chamber one hundred feet long by 
ninety wide ; it is reached by an entrance seventy feet long, 
and in one place only four feet wide. The Santa Cruz Cave 
has no beauty to render it attractive. The Cave of Skulls is 
remarkable for having contained, when first discovered, a num- 
ber of human skulls and bones, all covered with layers of car- 
bonate or sulphate of lime, from the thickness of a leaf to an 
inch. These bones are now in the cabinet of the Smithsonian 
Institute. At Cave City, and seven miles from Murphy's, in 
Calaveras county, is a cave in which a Know-Nothing lodge 
was accustomed to meet in 1855. In the bluff bank of the 
Middle Fork of the Cosumnes River, eighty feet above the 
stream, is a cavern, called Limestone Cave, with many intri- 
cate passages and some fine stalactites. 

§ 61. Waterfalls. — Besides the cascades of the Yosemite 
valley, there are a number of others in the state. There is a 
cataract, about five hundred feet high, on Fall River, which 
empties into the ]VIiddle Fork of Feather River ; one of three 
hundred and eighty feet, where the South Fork of the Ameri- 
can River slides down over a convex rock, looking like a streak 
of snow when seen from a distance ; one of sixty feet, in the 
San Antonio River, in Calaveras county ; another of seventy- 
five, on the same stream, which foils fourteen hundred feet 
within a mile ; and one of three hundred feet, called the " Riffle- 
box Falls," in Deer Creek, Nevada county. 

California has five natural bridges. The largest of these is 
on a small creek emptying into the Hay Fork of the Trinity 



SCENERY. S9 

River, Avhere a ledge of rock three hundred feet wide crosses 
the valley. Under this rock runs the creek, through an arch 
twenty feet high by eighty feet across. The rock above the 
arch is one hundred and fifty feet deep. On Lost Kiver, in 
Siskiyou county, there are two natural bridges, about thirty 
feet apart. The rock is a conglomerate sandstone, and each is 
from ten to fifteen feet wide, and the distance across the stream 
is about eiglity feet. One of these bridges is used regularly 
by travellers. On Coyote Creek, in Tuolumne county, ten 
miles nortliward from Sonora, are two natural bridges, half a 
mile apart. The upper bridge is two hundred and eighty-five 
feet long with the course of the water, and thirty-six feet high, 
Avith the rock thirty feet deep over the water. The lower 
bridge is similar in size and height to the other. 

§ 62. Solfataras. — In the northeastern part of Plumas coun- 
ty are many hot springs — perhaps numbering one thousand — 
covering an area of ten acres. They roar and hiss so as to be 
heard at a distance of a mile, and their steam can be seen from 
a greater distance. The whole place smells strongly of sul- 
phur, which mineral, as well as alum and various earthy salts, 
abound in the soil about the springs. 

In four or five places in California the earth is constantly 
hot, and sulphureous gases and vapors are always escaping. 
There is such a solfatara about fifteen miles eastward from 
Santa Barbara ; another near Owen's Lake ; another near the 
Geysers, in Sonoma; and another near the hot springs in Plu- 
mas county. It was rumored in 1858 that there was an active 
volcano in Plumas county, near Lassen's Peak, but there is no 
satisfactory proof of its existence, though there is a portion of 
country in that vicinity of which very little is known. 

§ 63. Mount Shasta. — One of the best opportunities for ro- 
mantic adventure in the state is in the ascent of Mount Shasta. 
Several parties have gone to its summit — no trifling underta- 
king. The ascent is very difficult ; the sides of the peak are 
steep and rugged. The distance from the southern foot of the 
mountain to the summit is estimated at fifteen miles. Four 
6* 



90 EESOtlRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

miles from the summit there is a bench of trap-Fock; seven 
miles farther is a second bench, of red cement or lava ; three 
miles farther is a third bench, of black lava and obsidian. 
Near the second bench there are several lakes in cavities which 
were once probably craters. One of them certainly was once 
the vent of volcanic action. On the extreme summit of the 
mountain are a number of basaltic columns, looking like chim- 
neys. The scenery is very grand ; for, as the peak is fourteen 
thousand four hundred feet high, and towers far above all the 
mountains around it, the view has no limit in any direction 
save a very remote horizon. The Klamath, Trinity, Scott, 
Rogue, Pit, and Sacramento valleys are all visible, besides 
Lassen's Peak, the Downieville Buttes, the Marysville Buttes, 
the Three Sisters in Oregon, and so on. About a hundred 
yards west of the summit there are a dozen steaming-hot sul- 
phur springs, and the earth about them is so hot as to be un- 
pleasant. The air is so rare at the summit of Mount Shasta, 
that some persons ascending it have been troubled while there 
with dizziness, headache, spitting of blood, and difficulty of 
breathing. 



BOTANY. 91 



CHAPTER Y. 
BOTANY. 

§ 04. Peculiar Fauna and Flora. — California lias a botany 
and zoology of her own. Ilcr indigenous })lants and animals 
are peculiar to her soil. Her plants, her quadrupeds, her birds, 
and lier iishes, are difierent from those of other countries. The 
Californian vulture is, next to the condor of South America, 
the largest bird that flies ; and he might easily migrate to other 
parts of the continent, but he makes his home only in this 
state, and is certainly never seen east of the Rocky Mountains. 
The grizzly bear miglit travel almost as well, but he is found 
only in California and Oregon. The Californian deer is difier- 
ent from that of Virginia in horns, teeth, feet, color, and size. 
The bird known as the roadrunner or paisano might fly to ail 
parts of the continent, but is found only west of the Sierra 
Nevada. There is a blue-jay here, but it differs from the bird 
known to the New-Englanders as the blue-jay. The robin of 
New England difiers from the robin of Old England, and the 
Californian robin difiers from both. The sturgeon of the San 
Francisco market are not the same with those eaten in New 
York ; and one species found in California is not found in a 
state so near as Oregon. Our trees are like, and yet are un- 
Hke, those of the Atlantic states and Europe. We have oak 
and pine, spruce, sycamore, and horse-chestnut trees, and yet 
any observant man sees at a glance that they differ in many 
important particulars from the trees known by those names 
elsewhere. California, with a little of the country adjacent, is 
a distinct botanical district. Her vegetation was first pro- 



02 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

duccd on licr own soil, and li:is not been derived from or com- 
municated to any other district by the course of nature. 

§ 05. JDistn'butioti of J^Iafits. — ^lost of the Sacramento and 
San Joaquin valleys, the Colorado Desert, the eastern slopes 
of the Coast Mountains, and the Coast Kange south of latitude 
35°, are treeless; the Sierra Nevada and the western slopes of 
the Coast l\ange north of 35°, have line forests; and in the 
foot hills of the Sierra Nevada, and in the coast valleys, there 
are beautiful open groves of oak-trees. The timber of the 
Sierra is mainly spruce, pine, and fir ; that of the coast, north 
of 37°, redwood; and spruce and pine south of that latitude. 

§ 06. Sfq)eriorit(/ of Co7ii/ers.— The botany of California is 
remarkable for containing a number of the largest and most 
beautiful coniferous trees in the world, groAving to a height of 
three hundred feet and a thickness of eight and ten feet in the 
trunk, and some of them still larger. Among these gigantic 
glories of the vegetable kingdom are the mannnoth tree, the 
redwood, the sugar-pine, the red lir, the yellow fir, and the 
arbor-vitte, or IVmja gigantea. Other large conifers contrib- 
ute to the magnilicence of our forests. We have the laurel, 
the madrona, the evergreen-oak, and the nut-pine {Pinus sa- 
bhu'ana)^ evergreen trees with a growth resembling that of 
deciduous trees. Our deciduous trees are few, and of little 
value to the mechanic. 

The mammoth tree (Sequoia gigantea) wa5 described in the 
preceding chapter. 

§ 67. Redwood. — The redwood {Sequoia sem2)ervirens) is 
the second in size and the first in commercial value of all the 
trees in California, though not much superior to the sugar-pine 
in either respect. It grows only within thirty miles of the 
ocean from Monterey to Crescent City, and is never found out 
of the state. It bears a remarkable resemblance in color and 
texture of wood and bark, and color, form and distribution of . 
foliage to the mammoth tree, to which it is not much inferior in 
size. A redwood-tree called "Fremont's tree," in Santa Cruz 
county, is two hundred and seventy-live feet high, and nineteen 



ROTA^'Y. 93 

feet in diameter six feet above the ground ; and others equally 
large are found in the northwestern part of tlie state. Trees 
two hundred and fifty feet high and eight feet through are 
not rare. Tlie wood is very straiglit-graincd, free-splitting, 
durable, soft, and light. So freely does it split, that boards 
twenty feet long, eight inches wide, and an inch thick, are 
sometimes made from it with the frow. No wood in the world 
splits so beautifully and regularly. There is no better wood for 
the general use of the farmer, and it is the chief building ma- 
terial of the coast. No timber is more durable either above or 
below ground. The color is a rich dark-red, which, when var- 
nished, makes a fine appearance in furniture. The tree grows 
in dense forests, which contain an immense amount of timber. 
Thus, on the plain southeast of Crescent City, there are hun- 
dreds of acres of land of which every fifteen feet square, on an 
average, supports a tree three feet through and two hundred 
and twenty-five feet high — a statement that may appear in- 
credible to those wiio have seen only the forests east of the 
Mississippi River. These trees will often furnish tw^enty saw- 
logs, each ten feet long, and every acre will supply material to 
make one million feet of sawn lumber, which, at the low rate 
of fifteen dollars per one thousand feet, is Avorth fifteen thou- 
sand dollars. The redwood stump, after the tree has been 
cut down, throws out a number of shoots, one or two of which 
choke down the weaker ones and become larije trees. A red- 
wood forest is almost inexterminable. 

§ 68. Pines. — The sugar-pine (Piiius lambertiana) is the 
most magnificent tree of all the pine kind, and indeed it has no 
superior in the vegetable creation, save the mammoth and the 
redwood, the confessed moiiarchs of the plant kingdom. It is 
closely related to the white pine {Pi7ius strobvs) of the East- 
ern states; "though," as Dr. Newberry says, "like all the 
conifers on the Pacific coast, it exhibits a symmetry and perfec- 
tion of figure, a healthfulness and vigor of growth not attained 
by the trees of any other part of the world." The mature tree 
sometimes reaches a height of three hundred feet and a diam- 



94 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOHXIA. 

eter of twenty, but it rarely exceeds tvv'O hundred and ten. 
The young trees of the sugar-pine give early promise of the 
majesty to which they subseqututly attain. They are unmis- 
takably young giants; even when having a trunk a foot in 
diameter, their remote and regularly-whorled branches, like the 
stem covered with a smooth, grayish-green bark, showing 
that, although so large, the plant is still " in the milk," and 
has only begun its life of many centuries. The sugar-pine 
conspicuously exhibits one of the most general and striking 
characteristics of the conifers — the great development of the 
trunk at the expense of the branches. Nearly the whole 
growth is thrown into the trunk, which generally stands with- 
out a flaw or flexure, a perpendicular cone, all its transverse 
sections accurately circular, sparsely set with branches, which, 
m their insignificance, seem like the festoons of ivy wreathing 
about the columns of some ancient ruin. The leaves are three 
inches long, dark bluish-green in color, and they grow in 
groups of five. The foliage is not dense. The cones are large, 
sometimes eighteen inches long by four thick. The wood is 
similar to that of the white pine — white, soft, homogeneous, 
straight-grained, clear, and free-splitting. It furnishes the 
best lumber in the state for the "inside work" of houses, and 
is the chief building material used in the Sierra Nevada, where 
it grows. Tiie tree derives its name from a sweet resin which 
exudes from the duramen or hard wood of the tree. This 
resin is sugar-like in appearance, granulation, and taste, and 
could not be distinguished from the manna of the drug-stores 
except by a slight terebinthine flavor. The pine sugar is ca- 
thartic. It is found in small quantities only, though it is said 
one hundred and fifty pounds of it were collected by a man 
who devoted himself for a few weeks to the business of gath- 



ermg it. 



The Western yellow pine [Pinus ponderosa) is a noble tree, 
next in size among the pines of CaUforuia to the sugar-pine. 
It sometimes reaches a diameter of seven feet. Its leaves 
grow in threes at the ends of the branches, giving the foli- 



BOTANY. 95 

age a peculiarly tufted appearance. Tlie color of the leaves is 
a dark yellowish-green. The bark is of a light yellowish-brown 
or cork color, and is divided into large, smooth plates from 
four to eight inches wide and from twelve to twenty inches 
long, whereby the tree may be recognized at a distance. The 
tree is found near the snow-line in the Sierra Nevada, and 
east of the summit, and northward to Washington Territory. 

The nut-pine (Pl/ius sahiniana) is remarkable as a conifer 
for its spreading top, and for its large cones full of edible 
seeds. It brandies out somewhat after the manner of a ma- 
ple ; rarely more than sixty feet high, though often with a 
trunk four feet through — a thickness of trunk that with most 
other conifers would give more than double the height. 
About halfway from the ground to the top, the trunk divides 
into a number of branches, which grow upward. The nut- 
pine is found in the lower part of the Sierra Nevada, and in 
the coast mountains near the head of the Sacramento valley. 
The seeds are larger than the common white bean, and are 
very palatable, with a slight terebinthine taste. The leaves 
are from four to ten inches long, and grow in threes. The 
foliage of the tree when seen from a distance, resembles that 
of the willow, both in color and distribution. In places where 
the nut-pine is found, the woodpeckers select them as store- 
houses for their winter food, cutting holes in their bark and 
putting an acorn in each. The Indians formerly relied upon 
the nuts for a considerable portion of their food.~ They climbed 
the tree by catching hold of the rough, strong bark with their 
hands, then putting their feet against the tree, without touch- 
ing it with their body or knees, they walked up till they reached 
the limbs. 

The twisted pine [Pimcs contortd) is found in the northeni 
part of the state. The leaves are yellowish green in color, 
about two inches long; and they grow in pairs. The tree 
does not exceed sixty feet in height. 

Coulter's pine [Pinus coidterii) grows in the Santa Lucia 
mountains. It reaches a height of one hundred feet, and has 



96 RESOURCES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

a trunk three feet throngh. Its branches are large and spread- 
ing, the leaves a foot long and pale sea-green in color; the 
cones seventeen inches long, seven inches through, and like a 
sugar-loaf in shape. 

§ GO. J'lrs. — The red lir, or Douglas spruce (Abies doxiglasii), 
is a tree of very large size, growing to be three hundred feet 
high and ten feet thick in the trunk. It is, as Dr. Newberry 
says, '^ one of the grandest of the group of giants which com- 
bine to form the forests of the West." The wood is strong, 
but coarse and uneven in grain ; the layers of each yeai^'s 
growth being soft on one side and very hard on the other. 
The timber is much used for rough work in houses, and for 
ship-building. The tree grows in dense forests on the Sierra 
Nevada and Cascade Mountains, from 35° to 49°, and near the 
coast north of 39°. 

The yellow-fir or Williamson's spruce (Abies icilliaiJisonii) 
bears a close resemblance to the red fir, and the two trees are 
usually found in company with each other. 

The black fir (Abies mefiziesii) is smaller and of little value. 

The Abies bracheata (Sajita Lucia fir) grows in the Santa 
Lucia mountains. The height is about one hundred feet, the 
shape a perfect cone, the lowest branches resting on the ground. 
The tree produces a resin used by the Catholic priests for in- 
cense. 

The "Western balsam-fir (Picea granelis)^ or Avhite fir, attains 
a height of one hundred and fifty feet, and a diameter of seven 
feet in the trunk. The bark on the trunks of the young trees 
contains numerous cysts full of the resinous fluid called the 
balsam of fir. 

§ 70. Cedars. — The Western juniper, or cedar (J^uuipenfs 
occide?italis), bears a strong resemblance to the juniper (J'u- 
niperus virginianus) of the Eastern states. Its wood, however, 
is white in color. It grows to be about thirty feet high. The 
wood of a juniper-tree found near the quicksilver mines of Xew 
Idria is so hard and fine in texture, that it would probably be 
valuable to engravers. 



BOTANY. 97 

The Californian white cedar [Lihoeed^us decurrens) grows 
one hundred feet high, and seven feet tliick in tlie trunk. It 
is found from Mount Sliasta to the Tejon Pass. The trunk is 
usually angular. Many of the trees are affected with a dry-rot 
which destroys their value as timber. 

The fragrant-cedar [Ciqyressiis fragrans) is found along the 
northern coast of the state. It is a large tree, and produces a 
white, clear lumber, valuable for furniture and the inside work 
of houses. The wood has a strong, lasting, and not unpleas- 
ant odor, half way between turpentine and ottar of roses. 

Lawson's cedar (Cujyressus lawsoniana) is a tree of little 
value. 

The arbor-vitae, also called cedar (Thuja giganted)^\?i, a most 
symmetrical and graceful conifer, growing to be nearly three 
hundred feet high. 

§ 71. Yew and Nutmeg. — The Western yew is an upright 
tree, from fifty to seventy-five high, with thin and light foli- 
age, the leaves being about an inch long. Its growth is 
straighter, its branches fewer, and its foliage thinner, more 
feathery, and lighter in color, than the European yew. It 
grows on the Sierra Nevada from 34° northward to British 
Columbia. 

The coast cypress ( Cujoressiis macro-carpus) is found only 
on Cedar Point, at Monterey, and there are not more than one 
hundred trees of it there. The foHage is very dense. 

The Californian nutnieiz' {^Torroja californica) is a graceful 
and beautiful evergreen found in the Coast Mountains near the 
bay of San Francisco. It grows from fifty to seventy-five feet 
high, and resembles the Western yew in foliage and general 
form. The fruit is like a nutmeg in size and shape, but it has 
a disagreeable terebinthine taste, and is never used as a condi- 
ment. 

§ 72. Ziaxirel. — The Californian laurel, or bay ( Oreodaphne 
calif ornica), is one of the most common and beautiful trees of 
the coast valleys. It is an evergreen, which grows to a height 
of fifty feet, with a trunk sometimes thirty inches in diameter. 



S8 EESOUECES OF CALIFOENIA. 

The leaves are dark green, lustrous, four inches long, one inch 
wide, sharp at both ends, with smooth edges. The foliage is 
dense. The wood is grayish in color, very hard, durable, and 
difficult to split. Both leaves and wood have an aromatic 
odor, which is stronger in the former ; and becomes still 
stronger when tlie leaves are bruised. The odor resembles 
that of bay-rum. It gives the headache to some sensitive 
persons. 

§ 73. Mach'ona. — The raadrona (Arbutus menziesii) is one 
of the most striking trees of the Californian forest. It is an 
evergreen, with an open growth, somewhat like that of a 
maple, bright-green and lustrous leaves, and a bright-red bark. 
Its height is sometimes fifty feet ; its diameter in the trunk 
two feet. The leaves are oval in shape, three inches long, 
pea-green underneath, and dark and shining above. The bark 
is smooth, and it peels off at regular seasons ; the neAv bark is 
a pea-green, which changes to a bright red. The wood is very 
hard, and is used to some extent in the arts, especially for ma- 
king the wooden stirrups commonly used in the state. The 
tree bears a bright-red berry in clusters, of which the birds 
are fond. 

§ 74. 3Ia7izamta. — The manzanita [Arctostaphylos glauca)^ 
another prominent feature in the Californian forest, is a dense, 
clump-like shrub, which grows as high as twelve feet, and 
nearly as broad as it is high. The trunk divides near the 
ground into several or many branches, and these terminate in 
a great multitude of twigs, so that -the shrub is a dense mass 
of branches and branchlets, all of which are very crooked. 
Tlie wood is dense, hard, and dark-red in color. The bark is 
red and smooth, occasionally peeling off and exposing a new 
light-green bark, which soon turns red. The leaves are regu- 
larly oval in form, about an inch and a half long, thick and 
shining, and pea-green in color; they set vertically upon tlieir 
Rtems. The manzanita bears a pinkish-white blossom in clus- 
ters, and these are replaced by round red berries about half an 
inch in diameter; they have a 2)leasant, acidulous taste, and 



BOTANY. 99 

are often eaten by the Indians and grizzly bears, but there is 
too little meat on them to pay Avhite men for the trouble of 
gathering them. The shrub grows in the coast valleys, and 
in the Sierra Nevada, up near to the limit of perj^etual snow. 
The name means " little apple," manzana being the Spanish 
for apple. 

§ 75. Ceanothiis. — The ceanothus, sometimes called tlieT^ali- 
fornian lilac, of which there are many sjiecies, is a beautiful 
evergreen shrub, growing about ten feet high, with clusters 
of lilac-like flowers, of various shades of blue, violet, and red, 
according to the species. The tree produces a multitude of 
little twigs, and a dense foliage, and may be trimmed into 
almost any shape. 

§ 76. Oaks. — The Californian white oak ( Quercus hindsii), 
or long-acorned oak, is a very large tree, and the characteristic 
oak of California. It resembles the white oak of the Atlantic 
slope in the color of its bark and the shape of its leaves ; but 
its growth is very different. It seldom reaches a greater 
height than sixty feet, and is often wider than high. Some- 
times it measures one hundred and twenty-five feet from side 
to side. The trunk, which occasionally grows to be eight feet 
through, throws out large horizontal boughs within ten feet 
of the ground, and above that point the trunk is soon lost 
among the large branches. The tree furnishes no straio-ht 
timber, and the wood is so soft and brittle as to be of no use 
in the arts ; whereas the Avhite oak of the Mississippi valley is 
a most valuable ^ree, with a trunk so tall and straight, thiit 
sills and beams of it sixty feet long are common, and with a 
wood so tougli, that it supplies all the axles and plough-bejims 
of the country. The Californian white oak is not even fit for 
fence-rails. The tree, however, is very beautiful and mnjestic, 
and the open groves of it in the valleys and foot-hills form, as 
Dr. Newberry says, "the most important element in those 
scenes of quiet beauty which so often excite the admiration of 
the traveller in California." The tree bears much resemblance 
in form and size to the oak of England, the groves of it appear- 



100 RESOURCES OF CALIFORiSriA. 

ing like the English parks. At the ends of the large boughs 
are branches which hang down like vines — giving the tree, 
when seen from a distance, something of the appearance of an 
elm. The acorns are large, sometimes two and a half mches 
long. They once formed the chief article of food of the Cali- 
fornian Indians. 

The evergreen oak [Quercus agrifolia) is a low, spreading 
tree, much like an apple-tree in size and shape. The foliage, 
however, is darker and denser. The acorns are small, thin, 
and sharp-pointed. The wood is hard, crooked in grain, and 
valuable for knees in ship-building. 

The Californian chestnut oak ( Quercus densijlora) is a low, 
handsome evergreen tree, with a leaf very much like that of 
the chestnut. The bark is very rich in tannin, and is exten- 
sively used for the tanning of hides. The tree is rare north of 
latitude 39°, and is most abundant in the mountains about 
Santa Cruz. 

The Western chinquapin ( Castanea chrysophylla)^ or golden- 
leaved chestnut, is an evergreen shrub that grows in the Sierra 
Nevada. At the height of three feet it bears an edible and 
palatable fruit, something like the beechnut in shape, but larger. 
The flowers and ripe fruit are often found on the same bush. 
The leaves are dark-green above, and covered with a yellowish 
powder beneath. The Western chinquapin grows to be a tree 
thirty feet high in some parts of Oregon. 

The fulvous oak ( Quercus fulvescens) is a deciduous tree, 
that grows about thirty feet high, with leaves somewhat like 
those of the Western chinquapin. Tlie acorn, when young, is 
concealed in the cup, the two together resembling a little 
wheel ; but the acorn, when mature, is an inch and a half long, 
and projects considerably beyond the cup. The wood is tough- 
er than that of most of the oaks of California. 

Kellogg's oak ( Quercus kellorjgii) is a large deciduous tree, 
found only in California. Its leaves are deeply sinuate, with 
three principal lobes on each side, terminating in several acute 
points. It bears fruit only in alternate years, or at least mos^ 



BOTANY. 101 

abundantly every other year. An idea prevails that the acorns 
giv^e to swine a disease of the kidneys. 

The huckleberry -leafed oak ( Quercus vaccinifolla) is a shrub, 
from four to six feet high, which grows on the mountains in 
the northern part of the state. Its leaves, in size and form, 
resemble the huckleberry ; the acorn is of the size and shape 
of a small hazel-nut. 

§ 77. Buckeye. — The Californian horse-chestnut, or buck- 
eye {^scidiis callfornica), is a shrub, or low, spreading tree, 
abundant in the Sacramento, San Joaquin, and coast valleys. 
It likes to grow about rocky ledges, in ravines, and on the 
banks of streams. Sometimes it throws up a dozen stems, 
which grow to a thickness of thre« or four inches each; but 
usually it has one trunk, six or eight inches through. The 
tree rarely exceeds fifteen feet in height, and it has a hemi- 
spherical shape, very dense foliage, rising from the ground in 
a globular form. It continues to put forth large clusters of 
fragrant blossoms from early spring till late summer. The 
leaves are among the first to open of the deciduous trees of 
the state. Five leaves grow together on one stem. The fruit 
has a close resemblance to that of the buckeye-tree of the Mis- 
sissippi valley, but is larger and more abundant. It is a staple 
article of food with those few Californian Indians who still 
depend upon wild fruits and game for their subsistence. 

§ 78. Sycamore. — The Mexican sycamore {Platanus race- 
moscf.) exhibits a striking resemblance to the Western syca- 
more of the Atlantic slope. It has the same straggling, irreg- 
ular growth ; the same smooth, white, scaly bark ; the same 
large, yellowish leaf: but instead of having only one ball on a 
stem, like the Atlantic sycamore, it has several, the stem run- 
ning through one or tw' o, and terminating in the last one^. 

§ 79. PitaJiaya. — The pitahaya {Cerens giganteus)., a gigan- 
tic cactus, is one of the most prominent features of the botany 
of the deserts in the southern part of California. It growls to 
a height of fifty feet, with a trunk thirty inches in diameter. 
Sometimes the trunk has no boughs, but usually it throws out 



102 KESOUKCES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

from two to six, which are about half the thickness of the 
trunk ; they run out horizontally for a foot or two, and then 
turn upward and rise parallel with the trunk. There are no 
twigs or leayes, but flowers and fruit grow on the tops of the 
trunk and branches. The whole plant resembles a huge can- 
delabrum. The flowers are three inches long, as wide, with 
stifl', curling, and cream-colored petals. Tlie fruit is as large 
as a hen's egg, and the meat is a red pulp, full of little seeds. 
The taste is insipid ; but when the fruit is dried, according to 
the Indian custom, it acquires a flay or somewhat hke that of 
a fig. 

§ 80. T^iicca. — The yuccn, or bayonet-tree, is a kind of palm, 
— an endogenous tree that liyes in the southern deserts. It 
sometimes grows to be thivty-fiye feet in height, with a trunk 
two feet through ; but usually it is about ten feet hi^h, with a 
trunk eight inches in diameter. It has no twigs or branches, 
but sometimes it divides into two trunks. The foliage, con- 
sisting of leaves eighteen inches long, and shaped like the 
blade of a bayonet, hangs down from the tops of the trunks. 

§ 81. Mezquit. — The mezquit {Algarobia glandidosa) is a 
low tree of the Colorado Desert. It sometimes reaches a 
height of twenty feet, with a trunk fifteen inches in diameter. 
The lower branches are very near the ground, and the whole 
tree has a very regular, semispherical form. The leaves are 
like those of the black locust, and the foliage thin. The tree 
bears numerous pods, from three to five inches long, full of 
sweet, nourishing beans, about the size of the common white 
bean. The mezquit-bean is often eaten by men, and horses 
and mules are very fond of it. 

The curly mezquit {Stromhocarptis 2yubesce7is) is a similar 
shrub, and bears a crooked bean, called the " screw-bean." It 
also grows only on the desert. 

§ 82. Jliscellaneous Trees and Shnd)s. — A few walnut-trees 
grow along the Sacramciito River, and it is said that some 
chestnuts have been found in Mendocino county, but they are 
unknown in tlie greater part of the state. We have no indi- 



BOTANY. 103 

geiions beech, elm, hickory, locust, acacia, or sassafras. Our 
wild cherry and wild plum are bushes, but their fi'uits resem- 
ble the wild plums and cherries of the East. We have willows 
and Cottonwood, which differ little in appearance from those 
of the Mississippi valley. There are Avild grapes, blackberries, 
gooseberries, huckleberries, raspberries, salmon-berries, and 
strawberries. A truffle, or a root resembling it, is found in 
the valleys of the coast and the Sierra Nevada. The grizzly 
bear considers it a delicacy, and frequently digs it up. A 
shrub called the "joint-fir" (a species oi Ephedrci)^ sometimes 
used for making tea, is found in Calaveras and Tuolumne coun- 
ties. In the valleys of the Coast Mountains is found the yerha 
huena (Spanish for "good herb"), a creeping vine, bearing 
some resemblance in its leaf and vine to the wild strawberry. 
It has a strong perfume, half-way between peppermint and 
camphor. The yerha delavihora (Spanish for "rattlesnake- 
herb," known to botanists as the Dauciis pusillus) is a carrot- 
like vegetable, the leaves of which are said to be a specific for 
the bite of the rattlesnake. 

§ 83. Poison OaJc. — The poison oak, or poison ivy (lihus 
toxicodendron)^ grows abundantly in the Sacramento Basin, 
and along the coast. It thrives best on a moist soil, and in 
the shade. In a thicket with other bushes it sends up many 
thin stalks eight or ten feet high, with large, luxuriant leaves 
at the top ; in the shade, the leaves are green. In tlie open, 
dry ground, exposed to the sun, and without support from oth- 
er bushes, the poison oak is a low, poverty-stricken little shrub, 
with a few red leaves. If it can attach itself to an oak-tree, 
it becomes a parasitic vine, and attains a thickness, though very 
rarely, of four inches in the ti'unk, and climbs to a height of 
forty feet. The touch of the leaf is poisonous, and causes a 
very irritating eruption of the skin. It rapidly communicates 
by the touch from one part of the body to another, causing 
severe inflammations and swellings. Tlie most delicate parts 
of the body are most affected by the poison. The eyes are 
sometimes closed "up entirely by the swelling round them ; and 



104 KESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

many cases are recorded of faces so swollen, that they could 
not be recognized by mtimate friends. iSome persons are not 
aliected by the touch of the Rhus ; but instances have occurred 
wherein persons supposing themselves, after long experience, 
to be free from danger, have at last been poisoned : and when 
the poison has once taken hold, the system is always very 
easily affected from that tune forward. Even passing to the 
leeward of the bush on a windy day, or going through the 
smoke of a fire in which it is burning, will bring the poison to 
the surface asrain. 

§ 84, Amole. — The amole ( CJilorogaliunponieridianmn)^ or 
soap-plant, has an onion-like, bulbous root, which, when rubbed 
in w^ater, makes a lather like soap, and is good for removing 
dirt. It was extensively used for washing, by the Indians and 
Spanish Californians, previous to the American conquest. The 
amole has a stalk four or five feet high, from which branches 
about eighteen inches long spring out. The branches are cov- 
ered with buds, which open in the night, beginning at the root 
of the boughs, about four inches of a branch opening at a time. 
The next night, the buds of another four inches open, and so 
on. 

§ 85. Nutritious Herbage. — Of indigenous nutritious grasses 
there are a number in the state. The wild oat, though not a 
grass, may be mentioned under this head. It resembles the cul- 
tivated oat so nearly, that there has been some doubt whetlier 
they are not identical, but the opinion among botanists is that 
they are distinct species. The wild oat, in the year 1835, 
was found only south of the bay of San Francisco ; but about 
tliat time, when the white men crossed frequently from the 
southern to the northern side of the bay, the oat was sown in 
a natural way by horses and cattle, and it spread rapidly over 
the Sacramento valley and the coast region. It grew very 
luxuriantly, and in some places surpassed in the height, size, 
and abundance of stalks, any field of cultivated oats which I 
have ever seen. It is said that in some localities the oat-stalks 
w^ere so high, that men sitting erect on horseback could not 



BOTANY. 105 

see each other at a distance of ten feet. The soil and climate 
were evidently very favorable to it. During the last six or 
eight years, the wild oats have been eaten down so closely by 
cattle, that in many places they have been killed out. They 
are propagated from year to year, not by the roots, but by the 
seeds, many of which fall into cracks in the earth, where they 
lie in safety until the rains come, when the ground closes up 
and the grain sprouts. The earth cracks in the summer, in 
many parts of the state ; and in places where the wild oats 
grow, the position of the cracks of one year may be traced the 
next season by the position of the stalks of the grain. 

The wild oat grows on hill and plain, and furnishes a large 
part of the wild pasture of the state. It is wholesome, nutri- 
tious, and palatable for cattle. Much of it is cut for hay. The 
amount of gram which it furnishes is small in proportion to 
the quantity of straw, and it is never threshed. 

After the wild oats, in importance to the herdsman, comes 
the "burr-clover," so named from a spherical burr, about a 
quarter of an inch in diameter, which it bears in clusters of 
three. This burr-clover is found in all the settled parts of the 
state. Cattle- do not like it when green ; but after it dries, 
the burrs fall upon the ground, and are picked up by the cat- 
tle, while the stranger is astonished at seeing them eating and 
keeping fat on what appears to him to be bare earth. On ex- 
amining the surface of the ground, he will find that it is cov- 
ered with the dry stalks and burrs of the burr-clover. The 
bloom consists of three very small yellow flowers. It is said 
that the stalks of this clover take root whenever the joints 
touch the ground. 

The alfilerilla {Erodmm cicutarium) is another indigenous 

nutritious herb of much importance to the herdsman. It is 

succulent, sweet, hardy, bearing clusters of spikes or pins an 

inch and a half long. These spikes have given it the name of 

pin-grass ; and the resemblance of its leaves to the geranium 

has suggested the name of " wild geranium," by which title it 

is also known to some persons. It has a large root, which it 
6 



106 HESOUKCES OF CALlFOKNIA. 

sends deep into the ground, tlius enabling it to resist the 
drought, while above the surface it puts forth a dense mass 
of stalks and leaves, spreading out sometimes several feet in 
every direction. Cattle prefer it to every other indigenous 
herb of the state. The seeds seem to abound throughout the 
soil, for wherever the earth is ploughed up for the first time, 
there the alfilerilla appears, though it may never have been 
seen there before. It is common in gardens, cultivated fields, 
and fallow lands. 

The white Californian clover has a large yellowish- white 
bloom, from an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, a beau- 
tiful plant, well suited as an ornament for yards and gardens. 
It grows very large, and two feet high in moist, favorable sit- 
uations ; while in dry places it will also mature its seed with- 
out rising more than two or three inches above the ground. 
It is very sweet, and it is often eaten by the Indians, who like 
it both raw and boiled. Cattle are also extremely fond of it. 

Another species of clover has a round bloom about a third 
of an inch in diameter, composed of violet-tinged flowers. 

Another clover has a bloom from a sixth to a quarter of an 
inch in diameter, the flowers of which are subdued green, 
tipped with pink at the end. 

The Melilotes officmalis^ another herb, commonly called a 
clover, though not strictly entitled to that name, likes a very 
moist soil, and then grows luxuriantly, crowding out nearly 
every thing else. Its bloom consists of a drooping head about 
an inch long and a sixth of an inch thick, hung with little yel- 
low flowers. Cattle are not fond of this herb in any shape, but 
they hke it better in hay than when green. 

Of nutritious grasses there are a number, but they do not 
form a sod. The drought of summer and fall seems to kill the 
roots. 

Of wild flowers there are a great variety and abundance in 
California, and they have their different seasons for blooming; 
and in canons where the soil is always moist, flowers may be 
seen in every month of the year. In tlie spring-time the hill- 



BOTANY. 107 

sitles are frequently coYered with them, and their red, bhie, or 
yellow petals hide every thing else. Each month has its flow- 
ers : in March the grass of a valley may be hidden under red, 
in April under blue, and in May under yellow blossoms. There 
is such a variety that within an hour I have counted twenty 
species on a spot not more than tAventy feet square. This was 
on dry, sandy soil, in Sonoma valley, in the month of May. 
None of the flow^ers are large, brilliant in color, or rich in 
sweet, strong perfume. 

The tule is a reed which covers all the large tracts of swamp 
lands in the state. It has no leaf, but a plain, round stalk, ya- 
rying from half an inch to an inch and a half at the butt, and 
tapering gradually to a point. It is usually not more than 
eight or ten feet high, but at the Tulare Lake it grows to 
fifteen or twenty feet. 

The grass and herbage begin to grow and clothe the land- 
scape in green after the first heavy rains of the rainy season. 
These rains may come in December, January, or February; 
and until they do come, the earth, in the districts not covered 
with timber, is brown. The grass continues green until June, 
when it begins to dry up and turn yellow and brown, which 
colors then predominate in the landscape until the rains come 
again. The death of the grass, except at high elevations, is 
caused not by the cold but by the drought '; and in those months 
when the prairies of Indiana and Illinois are c )vered with 
snow, the valleys of California are dressed in the brilliant 
green of young grass. 

The mistletoe grows abundantly on the oak-trees of Califor- 
nia. The Spanish moss, which hangs in long lace-like gray 
beards from the branches, also serves to give beauty to the 
groves in the valleys. 

Note. — ^Ntost of my information about the botany of the state has been 
derived from the reports of Dr. J. S. Newberry, in the United States Pacific 
Raihoad Survey, and from the conversation of Dr. A. Kellogg, Dr. 11. Behr, 
and Mr. II. G. Bloomer, of San Francisco. 



108 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



CHAPTER YI. 

ZOOLOGY. 

§ 86. General List. — Among the indigenous animals of Cal- 
ifornia are the grizzly bear ; the black bear ; the panther , the 
wild-cat ; the gray wolf ; the coyote ; three foxes ; the badger ; 
the raccoon ; the opossum ; the mountain-cat ; the weasel ; two 
skunks ; one porcupine ; three squirrels ; two spermophiles ; 
two ground-squirrels ; three rats ; three jumping-rats ; one 
jumping-mouse ; nine mice ; one mole ; the elk ; one deer ; 
one antelope ; the mountain-sheep ; three hares ; two rabbits ; 
the seal ; the sea-otter ; the sea-Uon ; the beaver ; two vul- 
tures ; the golden eagle ; the bald eagle ; the fishhawk ; 
eighteen other hawks ; nine owls ; the road-runner ; twelve 
woodpeckers ; four humming-birds ; eleven flycatchers ; one 
hundred and nine singers ; one pigeon ; two doves ; three 
grouse ; three quails ; one sandhill crane ; forty-one waders ; 
sixty-six swimmers, including two swans and five geese ; about 
two dozen snakes, including the rattlesnake ; half a dozen sal- 
mon ; two codfish ; and one mackerel. 

§ 87. J^ears. — The grizzly bear ( Ursiis horrihilis) is the 
largest and most formidable of the quadrupeds of California. 
He grows to be four feet high and seven feet long, with a 
Aveight, when very large and fat, of two thousand pounds, be- 
ing the largest of the carnivorous animnls, and much heavier 
than the lion or tiger ever get to be. The grizzly bear, how- 
over, as ordinarily seen, does not exceed eight hundred oi 
nine hundred pounds in w^eight. In color the body is a light 
grayish-brown, dark brown about the ears and along the ridge 
of the back, and nearly black on the legs. The hair is long, 



ZOOLOGY. 109 

coarse, and wiry, and stiff on the top of the neck and between 
the shoulders. The " grizzly," as he is usually called, is more 
common in California than any other kind of bear, and was 
at one time exceedingly numerous for so large an animal ; but 
he offered so much meat for the hunters, and did so much 
damage to the farmers, that he has been industriously hunted, 
and his numbers have been greatly reduced. He rano-es 
throughout the state, but prefers to make his home in the 
chaparral or bushes, whereas the black bear likes the heavy 
timber. The grizzly is very tenacious of life, and he is sel- 
dom immediately killed by a single bullet. His thick, wiry 
hair, tough skin, heavy coats of fat when in good condition, 
and large bones, go far to protect his vital organs ; but he 
often seems to preserve all his strength and activity for an 
hour or more after having been shot through the lungs and 
liver with large rifle balls. He is one of the most dangerous 
animals to attack. There is much probability that when shot 
he will not be killed outright. When merely wounded he is 
ferocious ; his weight and strength are so great that he bears 
down all opposition before him; and he is very quick, his 
speed in running being nearly equal to that of the horse. In 
attacking a man, he usually rises on his hind-legs, strikes his 
enemy with one of his powerful fore-paws, and then commences 
to bite him. If the man lies still, with his face down, the bear, 
will usually content himself with biting him for a while about 
the arms and legs, and will then go off a few steps and watch 
him. If the man lies still, the bear will believe him dead, and 
will soon get tired and go away. But let the man move, and 
the bear is upon him again ; let him fight, and he will be in im- 
minent danger of being torn to pieces. About half a dozen 
men, on an average, are killed yearly in California by grizzly 
bears, and as many more are cruelly mutilated. 

Fortunately, the grizzly bear is not disposed to attack man, 
and never makes the first assault unless driven by hunger or 
maternal anxiety. The dam will attack any man who comes 
near her cubs, and on this account it is dangerous to go in the 



110 RESOURCES OF OALIFOENIA. 

early summer afoot tlirongli chaparral where bears make their 
home. Usually a grizzly will get out of the way when he sees 
or hears a man, and sometimes, but rarely, will run when 
wounded. It is said that grizzlies in seasons of scarcity, used 
to break into the huts of the Indians and eat them. IS^o in- 
stance of this kind, however, has been reported for some years 
past. 

The greater portion of the food of the grizzly is vegetable, 
such as grass, clover, berries, acorns, and roots. The manza- 
nita, service, salmon, and whortleberries, are all favorites with 
him. The roots which he eats are of many different species, 
and it was from him that we learned the existence of a Cali- 
fornian truffle, very similar to the European tuber of the same 
name. The grizzly is very fond of fresh pork, at least after he 
knows its taste, and if swine come within his reach, he soon 
learns the taste. The farmers in those districts where the 
bears are abundant, shut up their hogs every night in corrola 
or pens, surrounded by very strong and high fences, which the 
bears frequently tear down. After having killed a hog, if any 
part of the carcass is left, the grizzly will return the next night 
and feast upon the remains, and go until it becomes putrid. 
He prefers, however, the fresh pork if it can be had. Xot un- 
frequently the grizzly discovers the carcasses of doer, elk, and 
antelope, killed by hunters, who have gone off for horses to 
carry their game home. In such case, the hunter usually finds 
little left for him when he gets back. They do not like climb- 
ing, and rarely attempt to ascend trees. The gl'izzly, though 
he often moves about and feeds in the day, prefers the night, 
and almost invariably selects it as the time for approaching 
houses, as he often does, in search of food. The cub is one of 
the most playful, good-humored, and amusing of animals. He 
will tumble somersets, sit up on his haunches and box, and in 
some of his pranks will show a humor and intelHgence scarcely 
inferior to that of very young children. The grizzly may easily 
be tamed, and it becomes very fond of its master. Adams, the 
Californian mountaineer and bear-hunter, trained several griz- 



ZOOLOGY. Ill 

zlies so that they accompanied him in his hunting excursions, 
defended him against wild animals, and carried burdens for 
him. The meat of the young grizzly resembles pork in tex- 
ture and taste, exceeding it in juiciness and greasiness ; but 
the meat of the old he-bear is extremely strong, and to delicate 
stomachs it is nauseating. 

The black bear ( Ursus americanus) is found in the timbered 
portions of California, but is not abundant. It is more often 
seen near the coast north of Bodega than in any other portion 
of the state. Dr. Newberry, speaking of the food of the black 
bear on this coast, says : " The subsistence of the black bears 
in the northern portion of California is evidently, for the most 
part, vegetable. The manzanita, wild plum, and wild cherry, 
which fruit profusely, and are very low, assist in making up 
his bill of fare. Rarely, too, we saw trees of yellow-pine bear- 
ing marks of bears' teeth, where they had torn off the outer 
bark to get at the succulent inner layer, which is capable of 
sustaining life, and to which the Indians very generally have 
recourse when pressed with hunger." It is believed that nei- 
ther the grizzly nor the black bear hybernates in California. 

§ 88. Panther and Wild-Cat. — The panther of California, 
supposed by Dr. Newberry to be the Felis concolor — the same 
with the panther found on tlie Atlantic slope of the continent 
— has a body larger than that of the common sheep, and a tail 
more than half the length of the body. Its color is dirty-white 
on the belly, and elsewhere a brownish-yellow, mottled with 
dark tips on all the hairs. The panther is a cowardly animal, 
and, except when driven by some extraordinary motive, never 
attacks man. A friend of mine, who was out hunting, dressed 
in a buff coat, was creeping through some brush to get near a 
deer, when he felt a heavy animal strike his back. He sprang 
up very suddenly, and saw a panther, Avhich had jumped down 
upon him from a tree, probably mistaking him for a calf or a 
deer. The brute seemed very much astonished and frightened 
at seeing a man there, and immediately fled at full speed. The 
panther is nocturnal in his habits, and always prefers the night 



112 BESOTJRCES OF CALIFORXIA. 

as a time for attacking colts, which are a favorite prey with 
hira. He is found in all parts of the state where there is tim- 
ber, but he never stops long in any place, unless he can find 
bushes to hide in. 

The American wild cat {Lynx nifus) is common in Califor- 
nia, particularly in the vicinity of the bays of San Francisco 
and San Pablo, where he often catches fish and water-fowl as 
well as land-animals. His color is a light brown, with dim, 
dark spots on the sides, and longitudinal hues along the middle 
of the back. 

§ 89. Wolves and Foxes. — The gray wolf ( Canis occidenta- 
lis) is found in aU the inhabited parts of California, but is not 
abundant. 

The coyote is very common in the state, and occupies the 
same place here with that occupied in the Mississippi valley 
by the prairie-wolf. Dr. Newberry thinks the two belong to 
the same species (Canis latra?7s), but I am inclined to believe 
that they are specifically difl:erent. The color of the coyote 
has more of a reddish tinge, he howls more, does not bark so 
much, and is more cunning. His food consists chiefly of rab- 
bits, grouse, small birds, mice, lizards, and frogs ; and in time 
of scarcity he will eat carrion, grasshoppers, and bugs. He is 
very fond of poultry, pigs, and lambs, and will destroy almost 
as many of them as would a fox. He is one of the worst ene- 
mies and most troublesome pests of the farmer. His method 
of catching chickens is to hide near the hen-roost about day- 
light, and, as the hens come down, he pounces upon them from 
his hiding-place ; and his motions are often so quick, that the 
victim has not even time to squall before she dies. In the 
spring and autumn, when wild geese and ducks are abundant, 
many coyotes make their homes in the tules, where they catch 
the birds which have been wounded by the hunters. 

The coyote loves nothing better than a young pig. When 
he sees an old sow with her young ones, he will hide, and wait 
a long time, in hopes that a little one will come within liis 
reach ; but if there be no hiding-place, he goes up boldly. The 



ZOOLOGY. 113 

SOW will at once face the assailant, and start to attack hira. 
He allows her to come up within a few feet of him, and then 
moves off slowly ; and she, like a fool, thinking she will catch 
him, continues the chase. While running, he keeps his head 
turned to one side, partly to watch her, and partly to watch 
the pigs ; and when he has seduced her far enough away, he 
suddenly makes a dash at the pigs, and, getting one of them, 
runs off with it, leaving the agonized and furious sow far be- 
hind. If the coyote does not succeed in getting a pig at the 
first attempt — that is, if he does not lead the sow far enough 
away — he tries it again and again, till he succeeds, the sow 
being so stupid as to follow him, after having repeated oppor- 
tunities to see his purpose. 

The coyotes frequently go in packs, and sometimes will un- 
dertake to attack a cov>\ On such occasions, they have a con- 
certed plan of operations : they surround their intended victim, 
and while those in front rush at her as a feint, those behind 
attempt to cut her hamstrings. As their teeth are very shaip, 
they often succeed. The cow's hamstrings once cut, she falls, 
and is completely at their mercy ; and they quickly pick her 
bones. 

The coyote is a great thief, and will steal the pillow from 
under a sleeping man's head; for it happens in California that 
bags of provisions are often used as pillows. When the coyote 
is hungry, he will gnaw any tiling that is greasy, and for that 
reason he frequently cuts off the hemp and raw-hide ropes 
with which horses are tied out at night ; but he never bites 
into hair-ropes, which for that reason were formerly used ex- 
clusively for staking out horses. 

The coyote is nocturnal in his habits, and is very fond oi£ 

howling or yelping. He begins with a shrill, quick bark, ana 

follows up with a succession of yelps, ending in a long-drawn, 

quavering, melancholy howl. When one begins, all others 

within hearing take up the cry. Ten years ago, the traveller 

in the Sacramento valley rarely passed a night without hearing 

their music. They are not so numerous now, but still they 
6* 



114 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

are frequently seen in the most densely-settled parts of the 
country. 

The red fox ( Yitlpes fiilvus macrovrus) is found north of 
latitude 3'7°; the gray fox (Vulpes virginianiis) in all the tim- 
bered parts of the state. The coast fox ( Viilpes littoralis) is 
found only on the island of San Miguel, ofl* the coast of Santa 
Barbara. In its color it bears a great resemblance to the gray 
fox, but it is not more than half as large, is less cunning, and 
is slower in its motions. Its tail is only one-third the length 
of its body. The specimens observed were very bold and 
stupid, allowing themselves to be caught, over and over again, 
in tlie same manner. 

The desert fox ( Jl.d2)es 7nacroifrus), which is found in the 
central deserts of the continent, crosses the Sierra Nevada, and 
is often killed in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties. 

§ 90. JBadger^ etc. — The American badger [Taxidea ameri- 
eana) is abundant in the plateau of the Sierra Nevada, and is 
occasionally found in other parts of the state. It is very shy, 
and is rarely seen by the traveller. 

The black-footed raccoon [Procyon hernandezii) is found in 
the timbered portions of the Pacific slope of our continent from 
Santa Barbara to British Columbia. It is longer than the At- 
lantic raccoon [Procyon lotor)^ but resembles it very closely in 
its mental character and capacity, habits and appearance. The 
raccoon is fond of grapes, and when he enters a vineyard selects 
those of the finest flavor. 

An opossum (JDidel2)hys calif arnica) is found in the wooded 
portions of the state, but is not abundant. 

The yellow-haired porcupine [Erethizon epixanthus)^ a na- 
tive of California, is the largest of its genus. The spines are 
a couple of inches long, yellowish in color, with brown tips. 
On the lower part of the sides the spines are replaced by long, 
stitf bristles. 

The mountain-cat, or striped bassaris {Passaris astuta), is 
abundant along the western base of the Sierra Nevada, be- 
tween latitudes 36° and 39°. The body is about the size of 



ZOOLOGY. 115 

that of the domestic cat, but the nose is very long and sharp, 
and the tail very long and large. The color of the animal is 
dark gray, with rings of black on the tail. The miners call it 
the " mountain-cat," and frequently tame it. It is a favorite 
pet with them, becomes very playful and familiar, and is far 
more affectionate than the common cat, which it might replace, 
for it is very good at catching mice. 

The pine-marten (Mustela americana) is found in California, 
but is rare. 

Tlie yellow-cheeked weasel (Putorius xanthogenys) is found 
along the coast, in the vicinity of the bay of San Francisco. 

The common mink [Putorius vison) has a skin as valuable 
as that of the beaver ; the fur is of a dark, brownish, chestnut 
color, with a white spot on the end of the chin. 

California has two skunks {^Mephitis occidentalis and Me- 
phitis hicolor), very common animals. The Mephitis hicolor, 
or little striped skunk, is chiefly found south of latitude 39° ; 
the other in the northern and central parts of the state. The 
colors of both are black and white. 

§ 91. IVie Squirrel family. — The Californian gray squirrel 
(Sciurus fossor), the most beautiful and one of the largest ot 
the squirrel genus, inhabits all the pine-forests of the state. Its 
color on the back is a finely-grizzled bluish gray, and white 
beneath. At the base of the ear is a little woolly tuft, of a 
chestnut color. The sides of the feet are covered with hair in 
the winter, but are bare in the summer ; the body is more slender 
and delicate in shape than that of the Atlantic gray squirrel. 
It sometimes grows to be twelve inches long in the head and 
body, and fifteen inches long in the tail, making the entire 
length twenty-seven inches. Dr. Newberry says: ''The Cali- 
fornian gray squirrel is eminently a tree-squirrel, scarcely de- 
scending to the ground but for food and water, and it subsists 
almost exclusively on the seeds of the largest and loftiest pine 
known {Pinus lamhertiana)^ the ' sugar-pine' of the Western 
coast. The cones of this magnificent tree are from twelve to 
sixteen inches in length, and contain each one hundred or more 



116* EESOUIICES OF CALIFOHNIA. 

seeds of the size and shape of the small wliite bean of com- 
merce. Tliese cones would be unmanageable by the sqrarrel 
in the tree, and he has the habit, so common m tlie family, of 
dropping them to the ground, where he can dissect them at. 
leisure. This he usually does early in the morning, climbing 
to the extremities of the topmost branches, where the cones 
hang, and cutting off a sufficient number to supply his wants 
for the day. He then descends, and, commencing at the base 
of the cone, tears off the scales in rapid succession, and skil- 
fully possesses hhnself of the seeds which they conceal. He 
is compelled, however, to supply other wants than his own, for 
the smaller pine-squii-rel [Sciurus douglasii) and the ground- 
squirrel [Tamias toicnsendli) appropriate a large share of his 
booty. When oak-trees are near, and acorns are ripe, he has 
recourse to them for subsistence ; as often as opportunity offers, 
robbing the woodpeckers of their stores, in which also he has 
the active co-operation of his more diminutive congeners. 
From the fact that he feeds upon the ground, it has been sup- 
posed that he was less active and less fitted for climbing than 
most tree-squirrels. This, I think, is not true. He is exceed- 
ingly quick and graceful in his movements ; and if less fre- 
quently seen to spring from tree to tree than the black and 
gray squirrels of tlie eastern states, it is because he inhabits 
coniferous trees, which are remarkable for the insignificance 
'of their branches compared with the size of the trunk, the 
limbs never stretching out and interlocking, as those of the oak 
and maple and other trees, in which our common species live." 
The Californian pine-squirrel {Sciuncs douc/lasii) inhabits the 
pine and redwood forests of the state. He is gray above and 
red beneath, with a black stripe separating the tv>o colors. 
He lives in a burrow or hollow log, but climbs well, and ob- 
tains his food chiefly from the pine-cones, which he cuts off 
in numbers at a time, and tears to pieces at his leisure, after 
tlu^y have fallen to the ground. He lays up a store of the 
seed in his burrow, for his winter supply. He is quick in his 
motions, graceful in his attitudes, and shy in his habits. 



ZOOLOGY. 117 

Tlie Missouri striped ground-squirrel has five dark-brown 
stripes on the back, separated by four gray stripes ; the sides 
are reddisli-brown, the belly grayish-white, and the tail rusty- 
blaok above and rusty-brown beneath. The animal is four or 
five inches long. It is found in the northern parts of tlie state. 
It eats acorns and the seeds of the pine, manzanita, and ccano- 
thus, in the thickets of which last-named bush it prefers to hide 
its stores. 

The SpermopJiile has two species in California, which resem- 
ble each other so closely, that they are usually supi)osed to bo 
the same ; they are popularly known as the Californian ground- 
squirrels, the little pests which are so destructive to the grain- 
crops. Their bodies are ten or eleven inches long in the largest 
specimens ; the tail is eight inches long, and bushy ; the ears 
large ; the cheeks pouched, and herein consists the chief differ- 
ence between them and squirrels ; the color above black, yel- 
lowish-brown, and brown, in indistinct mottlings, hoary-yel- 
lowish on the sides of the head and neck, and pale yellowish- 
brown on the under side of the body and legs. They dwell in 
burrows, and usually live in communities in the open, fertile 
valleys, preferring to make their buri'ows under the shade of 
an oak-ti'ee. Sometimes, however, single spermophiles will be 
found living in a solitary manner, remote from their fellows. 
Their burrows, like those of the prairie-dog, are often used by 
the rattlesnake and the little owl. Dr. Xewberry says : " They 
are veiy timid, starting at every noise, and on every intrusion 
into their privacy dropping from the trees, or hurrying in from 
their wanderings, and scudding to their holes with all possible 
celerity ; arriving at tho entrance, however, they stop to ]"econ- 
noitre, standing erect, as squirrels rarely and spermophiles 
habitually do, and looking about to satisfy themselves of the 
nature and designs of the intruder. Should this second view 
justify their flight, or a motion or step forward still further 
alarm them, with a peculiar movement, like that of a diving 
duck, they plunge into their burrows, not to venture out till 
all cause of fear is past. Should you in the mean time have 



118 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

seated yourself with your back against a tree, and have re- 
mained for a time as immovable as the trunk against which 
you lean, you will soon see sundry little heads protruding from 
the burrows, with as many pairs of eyes and ears skilled to 
detect the least sign of danger from their equally-feared ene- 
mies, the coyote, the Californian vulture, the red-shouldered 
and red-tailed hawk, and man himself If, however, your si- 
lence and quietness persuade them that you are none of these, 
they w^ill swarm forth from their holes, and at first timidly, 
but, gaining confidence, more fearlessly, engage in all the 
sports and antics for which the sciuridce are noted, and in 
w^hich none excel the species under considei'ation. It is a 
pretty sight, and one to which I have often treated myself, to 
sit down quietly under these old oaks, and watch the squirrels 
running about over the grass and trees, gambolling and play- 
ing together. As far as ^he eye could reach through the vista, 
the sprightly movements of these innocent animals could be 
discerned." 

The two species are called Beechey's spermophile [Spermo- 
philus heecheyi) and Douglas's spermophile {Spermophilus 
douglasii). The size, habits, and general appearance of the 
two species are the same, but they differ in the color of a stripe 
along the spine from the base of the head to the middle of the 
back: in Beechey's spermophile it is yellowish-hoary, in Doug- 
las's it is dark-brown. The former species is found very abun- 
dantly south of the straits of Carquinez ; the latter north of it, 
and fewer in number. 

Beechey's spermophiles are among the most formidable ene- 
mies of the farmer in those districts where they make their 
homes. They increase very rapidly in the vicinity of farms, 
and do great damage in grain-fields and gardens ; they eat 
grain and garden vegetables in all stages of their growth ; 
they peel young fruit-trees and vines ; they are, in short, dan- 
gerous to nearly every thing that is cultivated. They are very 
industrious, and lay up large stores for the winter, spending 
several hours every pleasant summer's day in gathering food. 



ZOOLOGY. 119 

They go considerable distances to fields; and the traveller, 
whose approach scares them, sees them in hundreds running 
across the road before him, with their tails erect, hurryhig 
from the field to hide themselves in their burrows. Many a 
large wheat-field, which would have yielded forty bushels to 
the acre if there had been no spermophiles to trouble it, is so 
despoiled by them, that the crop will not pay for harvesting. 
They are particularly abundant in the Santa Clara, Amador, 
and Pajaro valleys ; and their number is an important consid- 
eration in the estimate of the price of land. They will not 
live in moist land, nor very near the ocean, where the fogs 
l^revail. They are poisoned with strychnine and phosphorus, 
drowned by irrigation, and shut out by tight board fences. 
In wet winters many of them are drowned ; after a dry winter 
they are'* always numerous. Away from cultivated fields they 
depend for food chiefly upon grass-seeds, grass-roots, and 
acorns. 

The Californian gopher {TJiomomys hulbivorus) is, next to 
Beechey's spermophile, the most abundant and most trouble- 
some rodent of the state. When full grown, it has a body six 
or eight inches long, with a tail of two inches. The back and 
sides are of a chestnut-brown color, ^^aler on the under parts 
of the body and legs ; the tail and feet are grayish-white ; the 
ears are very short. In the cheeks are large pouches, covered 
with fur inside, w^hite to their margin, which is dark-brown. 

The gopher inhabits the fertile valleys of the coast from lati- 
tude 34° to 39°. He spends nearly all his time under ground, 
and does most of his mischief there, gnawing oif the roots of 
fruit-trees and garden vegetables, eating newly-sown grain 
and seeds, and nibbling at flowers and sweet bulbs. He is not 
a climber, nor is he very agile : if he gets into a trench eight 
inches wide and a foot deep, with perpendicular sides, he will 
run a long distance in it rather than clamber out ; and one of 
the best methods of catching him is to make such a trench 
round a field, and place square tin boxes, fifteen inches deep, 
eight inches square, and open at the top, in the bottom of the 



120 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

trench, at regular intervals of about fifty yards. The gopher 
frequently travels at night, and when he comes to this trench 
he falls in. He then runs along in it, looking for a convenient 
place to get out, and, coining to a tin box, falls into that. He 
can neither jump out nor gnaw through ; so he remains a pris- 
oner till he starves to- death, or the farmer conies along and 
kills hhii. 

The Colorado gopher [Thomomys fidviis) is found in that 
portion of the state south of latitude 34°, but is not abundant. 
It is smaller than the Californian gopher, and has more of a 
reddish tinge in its colors. Its habits and appearance other- 
wise are very similar to those of its northern congener. 

The broad-headed gopher {Thomomys laticeps)^ found in 
the vicinity of Humboldt Bay, is about five inches long. Its 
color on the back, sides, and belly, is yellowish-brown, with a 
reddish tinge between the fore legs. 

§ 92. TJie Rat Family. — California has a number of indi- 
genous jumping-rats, jumping-mice, and other rats and mice, 
too many and not sufficiently singular, or interesting to tlie 
general reader, to deserve a complete description here. I 
shall content myself, therefore, with giving a simple list of 
them, with the districts they inhabit, their entire length from 
the point of the nose to the end of the tail, and the main color 
of the back : 

Philip's jerboa, or jumping-rat {DipodjOmys philipi) ; Sac- 
ramento Basin and the southern valleys ; twelve inches ; yel- 
lowish-brown. 

The dun jumping-rat {Dipodotnys ayills) ; coast valleys 
south of San Francisco ; twelve inches ; lead-color. 

The Colorado jumping-rat {Perognathus penicillatus) ; Col- 
orado Desert ; nine inches ; tawny. 

The King's River jumping-rat {Per ognatJius parvus) ; King's 
River valley ; four inches. 

Hudson's jumping-mouse {Jacidas Jauhonii)\ valley of Ca- 
noe Creek; eight inches ; yellovvish-brown. 

Black rat {Mus rattus) ; coast from Humboldt Bay to San 



ZOOLOGY. 121 

Diego ; fourteen inches. There is much doubt whether it is 
indigenous. 

The long-tailed mouse {Reiihi'odon longiccmda) ; coast near 
San Francisco ; five inches ; dark-brown. 

Gambel's mouse i^He^^peromys ganihelii) ; from Tomales 
B ly to Kern Kiver ; five inches ; glossy-brown. 

Boyle's mouse {Ilesperomys hoylli) ; valley of the American 
Kiver ; eight inches ; glossy-brown. 

Californian mouse {Hesperomys callfornicus) ; Santa Clara 
valley ; six inches ;' sooty-brown. 

Desert-mouse {Ilesperomys eremieus) ; Colorado Desert ; 
five inches ; grayish-yellow. 

The bash rat {Neotoma mexicana) ; near San Diego and in 
the Colorado desert ; thirteen inches ; yellowish brown. 

The Keotoma fuscipes^ a rat ; coast valleys, from 38° to 
40° ; fifteen inches ; reddish above. 

The Arvicola montana^ a mouse ; near Petaluma, Monte- 
rey, and Lost River ; six inches ; yellowish brown. 

The long-faced mouse {Arvicola longirostris) ; Pit River 
valley ; six inches ; yellowish brown. 

The Californian ground-mouse {Arvicola edax) ; coast val- 
leys south of San Francisco ; six inches ; yellowish brown. 

The Arvicola callfomica, a mouse much like the sj^ecies 
last named. 

Tlie Oregon mouse {Arvicola oregond) ; near Tanales Bay ; 
four inches ; yellowish brown. 

The Oregon mole {Scalops tounsendii) is found near the 
bay of San Francisco, and perhaps in other parts of the state. 
It is six or seven inches long, nearly black in color, with fiiint- 
purplish or sooty-black reflections in the hair. 

§ 93. The Deer Family. — The American elk {Cervus cana- 
densis) is found in California as well as in many other parts 
of the continent. The animal is nearly as large as a horse, 
and has some resemblance to it in general shape, though 
smaller, and slimmer in the head, neck, and legs. Its length 
from the nose to the tail is seven feet ; its height five feet ; its 



122 RESOUEOES OF CALIFORXIA. 

greatest weight one thousand pounds. The color is a chest- 
nut brown, daik on tlie liead, neck, and legs, lighter and yel- 
lowish on the back and sides. The horns are very large, some- 
times more than four feet long, three feet across from tip to 
tip, measuring three inches in diameter above the burr, and 
weighing, with the skull, exclusive of the lovfer jaw, forty 
pounds. The horns of the old bucks have from seven to nine, 
perhaps more, prongs, all growing forward, the main stem 
running upward and backward. The elk were very abundant 
in California previous to 1849, and they were frequently seen 
in lai'ge herds ; but within the last ten years they have become 
rare, and before the close of another decade they will be ex- 
tinct in our state. A few are found in the San Joaquin valley, 
but the best place for hunting them is in Mendocino county. 
Several hundred carcasses find their way every year to the 
San Francisco market. The young fat elk furnishes a very 
juicy and sweet venison. 

The white-tailed Virginian deer, once common in the states 
east of the Mississippi, is not found in California, but in its 
place we have the black-tailed deer {Cervus columbiafius), 
which is a little larger and has brighter colors, but does not 
furnish as good venison, the meat lacking the juiciness and 
savory taste of the venison in the Mississippi valley. The av- 
erage weight of the buck is about one hundred and twenty- 
pounds, and of the doe one hundred pounds, but bucks have 
been found to weigh two hundred and seventy-five pounds. 
The summer-coat of the black-tailed deer is composed of rather 
long and coarse hair, of a tawny browm, approaching chestnut 
on the back. In September this hair begins to come off, expo- 
sing what the hunters call the "blue coat," which is at first 
fine and silky, and of a bluish-gray color, afterward becoming 
chestnut brown, inclining to gray on the sides, and to black 
along the back. Occasionally deer purely white are found. 
The horn, when long, is about two feet long, and forks near 
mid-length, and each prong forks again, making four points, to 
which a little spur, issuing fi'om near the base of the horn, may 



ZOOLOGY. 123 

be added, making five in all. This is the general fonn of the 
horn ; sometimes, however, old bucks are found with but two 
points. The deer likes the hills and the timber ; the prong- 
horned antelope {Antiloccq:>ra americana) loves the valley and 
the open laud. Before the Americans took California, the Sac- 
ramento and San Joaquin valleys abounded with herds of an- 
telope ; but now they are rare in the northern part of the state, 
and not abundant in the southern part. The traveller in the 
Tulare valley and in the Great Basin near the Coast Moun- 
tains, sees herds of them every day. Thousands are killed 
yearly for the market. In size the antelope is not quite so 
large as the Californian deer, which it resembles closely in form 
and general appearance. They are distinguished at a distance 
by their motion : the antelope canters, while the deer runs ; 
the anteloj^e go in herds, and move in a line following the lead 
of an old buck, like sheep, to which they are related, while deer 
more frequently are alone, and if in a herd they are more inde- 
pendent, and move each in the way that suits him best. In color, 
the back, upper part of the sides and outside of the thighs and 
forelegs are yellowish brown ; the under parts, lower part of 
the sides, and the buttocks as seen from behind, are white. 
The hair is very coarse, thick, spongy, tubular, slightly crimped, 
or Avaved, and like short lengths of coarse threads cut off 
bluntly. The horns are very irregular in size and form, but 
usually they are about eight inches long, rise almost perpen- 
dicularly, have a short, blunt prong in front, several inches 
from the base, and make a short backward crook at the top. 
The female has horns as well as the male. The hoof is heart- 
shaped, and its print upon the ground may be readily distin- 
from the long, narrow track of the deer. The antelope is 
about two feet and a half high, and four feet long from the 
nose to the end of the tail. 

The mountain sheep ( Ovis montana) is found on the Sierra 
Nevada, from the Tejon Pass to the Oregon line, but it is a 
rare and very shy animal, and is seldom killed. Its length is 
about five feet, and its weight sometimes three hundred and 



124 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

fifty pouncls, considerably greater than that of the deer or do- 
mesticated sheep. The color is white beneath, grayish brown 
elsewhere. The horns of the ram are very large, sometimes 
five inches through at the base and three feet long. The 
horns, after starting upward, turn backward, then downward, 
and so round with a circular or spiral shape, the tip inclining 
outward. Mountaineers assert that tliese horns are used by 
the sheep in getting down from the high clifis which he is fond 
of frequenting. Instead of clambering down toilsomely over 
the rugged and broken rocks, he makes an easy job of it by 
leaping headlong, confidently down, over precipices fifty, yes, 
one hundred feet high, and alights head first on his horns, 
which are strong enough to be unbroken by the shock, and 
elastic enough to throw him ten or fifteen feet into the air — 
and the next time he alights on his feet all right. 

§ 94. The Hare Family. — The Californian hare, or "jackass 
rabbit," as it is commonly called {Lepus calif or 7iicus)^ is one 
of the largest of its class, growing sometimes to be two feet 
long from the nose to the end of the tail. Its ears are very 
large, and have suggested the vulgar name. It was once 
abundant in all the valleys from the Klamath to the Colorado ; 
it is more rare now. The color beneath is a pale cinnamon ; 
above it is mixed black and light cinnamon, the longest hairs 
being of a light smoky-ash color for about half the length, 
then dark sooty-brown, then pale cinnamon-red, and finally 
black at the tip. 

The prairie hare [Lepus cainpestris) also, one of the largest 
hares, inhabits the plateau of the Sierra Nevada, Pit River 
valley, and the country about the Klamath lakes. It is all 
white in winter; in summer yellowish gray, with brownish 
tinges above and white beneath. The length, from the tip of 
the nose to the root of the tail, is from seventeen to twenty- 
three inches ; and the tail and ear each measure about four 
inches. 

Audubon's hare [JLepus auduhonii) inhabits the coast val- 
leys from Petaluma to San Diego. It is fifteen inches long, 



I 



ZOOLOGY. 125 

with a tail measuring to the end of the hairs on it three inches. 
The color is mixed yellowish-brown and black above, white 
beneath, thighs and rump grayish. 

Trowbridge's hare (Le2nis troichridgii) is found along the 
coast southward from 39°. The length is from eleven to 
fifteen inches ; the tail, with hair and all, less than an inch. 
The back is yellowish brown mixed with dark brown, paler on 
the sides, and ash-colored beneath. 

The sage rabbit {Lepus artemisia) is found in all the open 
parts of California north of the Straits of Carquinez. It is 
from eleven to sixteen inches in length ; in color, brown above 
and white beneath, with a yellowish tinge, the under part of 
the neck a yellowish brown. The fur on all parts of the body 
is lead-colored at the base. 

§ 95. Aquatic Mammals. — The American beavers ( Castor 
canadensis) were once very abundant in all the large streams of 
California, and it was chiefly for their sake that the first Ameri- 
can trappers entered the country some thirty-five or forty years 
ago. They are still found in nearly all parts of the state, and 
even numerous, it may be said, in some of the sloughs near the 
junction of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. They 
rarely build dams vi CaJ'fornia, but live in burrows in the 
banks. When they dive they slap the water with their tails, 
making a noise that can be heard at a considerable distance in 
a still night. Their skins, which once commanded very high 
prices, have lost much of their value since the adoption of silk 
for making hats. 

The common mink [Putorius vison) is found in California, 
but is not abundant. The general color of the animal is dark 
brownish-chestnut, with a Avhite spot on the end of the chin. 
The skin of the mink is as valuable as that of the beaver. 

The Californian otter [Lutra callfornica) is found all along 
this coast, and was formerly abundant on all the large streains. 
It is carnivorous, living entirely on fish and shell-fish. It pre- 
fers large streams and lakes for its home, while the plant-eating 
beaver prefers small streams. The Californian otter is some- 



126 EESOUECES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

times five feet long from the point of the nose to the tip of 
the tail. When in the water, its hair is at times beautifully- 
iridescent. 

The sea-otter {JEnhydra TJiarina) is larger than the Califor 
nian otter, and is also carnivorous. It generally makes its 
home near islands, and roams about in the water within ten 
or twenty miles of land. The sea-otter was at one time very 
abundant along the coast of California, and it was one of the 
attractions which induced the Russian Fur Company to estab- 
lish a post at Fort Ross, in latitude 38° 30', Avhere a number 
of Aleutian Indians were emploj^ed from 1812 to 1840 in the 
otter fishery. They would start out in their little single ca- 
noes, made water-proof with a covering of fish-bladders, so 
that there was no danger of their sinking if the sea should 
sweep over them, and thus they would go out fifty miles to 
sea and travel up and down the coast, usually coming home 
well laden with sea-otter skins worth sixty or eighty dollars 
each. The sea-otter is still abundant on the southern coast, 
and there are men in Santa Barbara county who make it a 
business to hunt them. 

'' The otter," says Mr. W. A. Wallace, " is very harmless, 
and always seeks to escape from human observation. When 
attacked they make no resistance, but endeavor to escape by 
sinking in the sea. If closely pursued and there is no escape, 
they scold and grin like an angry cat. If they escape the ene- 
my, as soon as they are safe they turn and deride him with 
various diverting tricks, such as standing on end in the water, 
jumping over the waves, holding the paws over the eyes, as 
if to shade them from the sun while looking at the enemy — 
then lying flat upon the back and stroking the belly. In their 
escape they carry their sucklings in their mouths, and drive 
before them those not fully grown. They were formerly taken, 
by the Russians and Indians, by means of nets, clubs, and 
spears. The young are said to be delicate eating, the flesh 
resembhng lamb. The flesh of the old ones is insipid and 
toucrh. 



ZOOLOGY. 127 

** Tlie otter is never seen upon land. He is purely an aquatic 
animal. When he swims ho turns upon his back and propels 
himself with great rapidity. The fore-paws are rounded like 
a cat's, but tlie claws of tlie older ones are generally worn oif. 
The hind-legs, or propellers, are broad and flat, like paddles, 
and are used very dexterously. The seal much resembles the 
otter, seen at a distance, but he swims upon his belly, and the 
hunter seldom mistakes the one for the other. The otter 
sleeps in the water, lying upon his back, and anchors himself 
from the motions of Avinds and waves by drawing a string of 
kelp across his breast, just below his fore-legs. When discov-' 
ered in this position, they are often approached very near by 
the hunters. They are very buoyant in the water, but when 
the chase has been long continued, and the blood of the otter 
becomes heated by the exercise, on being shot the body sinks 
rapidly to the bottom, and never rises. More than half the 
otters shot are lost in this way. 

" Once a day the otter comes near the shore for food. He 
eats every thing that grows in salt water, and is particularly 
fond of abelones [haliotus)^ mussels, and sea-eggs. At high 
water the abelone loosens its shell from the rock, to receive 
the nourishment w^hich the overflowing waters bring to it, and 
it is then easily taken from the rock and removed from its 
slioll. The otter is well acquainted with all the peculiarities 
of this fish, and this opportunity to capture it for food." 

The common seal, a species of phoca, is abundant along the 
coast. 

The sea-lions, of the Otaria genus, frequent the coast from 
May to November, making their homes during the winter in 
t^oine other clime, but where is not known. They delight to 
collect on clear summer days on rocks near the water's edge, 
and bask in the sun. They may often be seen on the rocks 
near the Golden Gate, and heard too, for they keep up a kind 
of barking or growling in chorus, Avhich grows louder as they 
see any one approaching. They db not wait, however, to let 
a man come near, but pitch off into the sex before he is within 



128 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

two hundred yards of them. Their color varies from light 
yellowish-brown to dark brown. 

§ 96. Vultures. — The Californian vulture ( Ca^Aar^es ca^(/br- 
nianus), sometimes improperly called ''condor," the largest bird 
on the continent, and next to the condor the largest flying bird in 
the world, inhabits all parts of the state, thougii it is not abun- 
dant in any place. It is as prominent and peculiar a feature of 
the birds Of California as the grizzly bear among the quadru' 
peds. It is very shy, and is rarely killed. The total length of 
the Californian vulture is about four feet, and its width from tip 
to tip of the outstretched wings, ten feet or more. Its color 
is brownish black, with a white stripe across the wings. The 
head and neck are bare, and red and yellow in color. The bill 
is yellowish white, and the iris carmine. Dr. Newberry says : 
" A portion of every day's experience in our march through 
the Sacramento valley, was a pleasure in watching the graceful 
evolutions of this splendid bird. Its flight is easy and eftbrt- 
less, almost beyond that of any other bird. As I sometimes 
recall the characteristic scenery of California, those intermina- 
ble stretches of waving grain, with here and there, between 
the rounded hills, orchard-like clumps of oak, a scene so solitary 
and yet so home-like, over these oat-covered plains and slopes, 
golden yellow in the sunshine, always floats the shadow of the 
vulture." 

Dr. Heermann, of the United States Pacific Railroad Sur- 
vey, wrote thus: ""Whilst unsuccessfully hunting in the Tejon 
valley, we have often passed several hours without a single 
one of this species being in sight, but on bringing down 
any large game, ere the body had grown cold these birds 
might be seen rising above the horizon and slowly sweeping 
toward us, intent upon their share of the prey. Nor in the 
absence of the hunter will his game be exempt from their rav- 
enous appetite, though it be carefully hidden and covered by 
shrubbery and heavy branches ; as I have known these marau- 
ders to drag forth from its concealment and devour a deer 
within an hour. Any article of clothing thrown over a carcass 



ZOOLOGY. 129 

■will shield it from a vulture, though not from the grizzly bear, 
who little respects such flimsy protection. My coat, used on 
one occasion to cover a deer, was found on our return torn by 
bruin to shreds, and the game destroyed. The Californian 
vulture joins to his rapacity an immense muscular power, as a 
sample of which it will suffice to state that I have known four 
of them, jointly, to drag off, over a space of two hundred 
yards, the body of a young grizzly bear weighing upward of 
one hundred pounds." 

The turkey-buzzard, or turkey-vulture {Cathartes aura), 
specifically the same with the bird known by that name in 
the Atlantic states, is found in all parts of California. From 
the tip of the bill to the end of the tail it is about thirty inches 
long, and six feet from tip to tip of the outstretched wings. 
The head and neck arc bare, covered with a bright-red wrin- 
kled skin. The plumage commences below that, with a circu- 
lar ruff of projecting feathers. The color of the plumage is 
black, with a purplish lustre, many of the feathers having a 
pale border. The bill is yellowish in color. 

§ 97. The Eagle Family. — The golden eagle (Aqiiila can- 
adensis) inhabits California, and indeed all parts of North 
America. Its length is thirty or forty inches ; its color on the 
head and neck is yellowish brown, white at the base of the 
of the tail, and brown, varying to purplish brown, and black 
elsewhere. 

The bald eagle {Halimtus leiicocephalos) was abundant in 
California ten years ago, and is still often seen along the Sac- 
ramento, San Joxiquin, and Klamath Rivers. It frequents rap- 
ids for the purpose of catching fish, which seem to furnish 
the larger part of its food. It is from thirty to forty inches 
long, white on the head and at the base of the tail, and brown- 
ish black on the breast, wings, and back. 

The fish-hawk {PaJidion carolinensis) is found along all our 
large rivers. It is from twenty to twenty-five inches long. The 
head and under parts are white, with pale yellowish-brown spots 
on the breast. The back, wings, and tail are dark brown. - 
7 



130 RESOUECES OF CALIFOENIA. 

The goshawk {Astur atricapillus) is of the same size with 
the fish-hawk, and in color is dark — a blu'sh-slate abovCj and 
mottled-white and hght ashy-brown beneath. , 

There are seventeen other hawks in the state, most of them 
small and rare. 

§ 98. Owls. — California has nine species of owls, namely: 
the barn, great-horned, screech, long-eared, short-eared, great 
gray, saw-whet, burrowing, and pigmy owls. All of them are 
found extensively on the continent, beyond the limits of our 
state, and all save the last two are common east of the Mis- 
sissippi. 

The burrowing owl (At7ie?2e cunicularia) is ten inches long, 
ashy-brown above and whitish-brown beneath, variegated by 
spots and bands of white and dark-brown. Dr. Newberry 
says; "The burrowing owl is found in many parts of Califor- 
nia, w^here it shares the burrows of Beechey's and Douglas's 
spermophiles. We usually saw them standing at the entrance 
of their burrows. They often allowed us to approach within 
shot, and, before taking flight, twisting their heads about, 
bowed with many ludicrous gestures, thus apparently aiding 
their imperfect sight, and getting a better view of the intruder. 
When shot at and not killed, or when otherwise alarmed, they 
fly Avith an irregular, jerking motion, dropping down much 
hke a woodcock at some other hole." 

The pigmy owl [Glaucidium gnoraci) is seven inches long, 
and inhabits the wooded districts. It flies about actively in the 
daytime, and appears to subsist chiefly on sparrows, which it 
catches in daylight. The general color is brownish-olive above 
and brownish- white beneath. 

§ 99. Road-runner. — ^The paisano, or road-runner ( Geococcyx 
calif ornianus)^ is one of the most remarkable birds of the state. 
It lives almost entirely upon the ground, very rarely flies, and 
frequents the highways, along wiiich it will run from any one 
approaching. Its speed is nearly equal to that of a common 
liorse, and it often furnishes an exciting chase to the solitary 
rider. It is abundant in the valleys and low hills, and luakes 



ZOOLOGY. 131 

its home among the bashes. The bird is akin to the cuckoo, 
and its generic name signifies " ground-cuckoo." Its length is 
from twenty to twenty-three inches, of which twelve are taken 
up by the tail. The general color is olive-green above and 
Avhite beneath; the central tail-feathers are olive-brown, the 
others dark-green — all edged and (except the central two) 
tipped with white. Dr. Heerman says : " I have not witnessed 
the followmg feat, but am assured by many old Californians 
that this bird, on perceiving the rattlesnake coiled up asleep, 
basking m the sun, will collect the cactus and hedge him 
around with a circle, out of which the reptile, unable to es- 
cape, and enraged by the prickly points opposing him on every 
side, strikes himself, and dies from the efiects of his self-inocu- 
lated venom." 

§ 100. Wood^^eckers. — There are eleven species of wood- 
pecker in the state ; of which two, the Californian (Melanerjyes 
formicworus) and Lewis's {JSIelanerpes torquatus)^ are worthy 
of special mention. 

The Californian woodpecker is called by the Spanish Cali- 
fornians the carpintero^ or carpenter, because he is in the habit 
of boring holes with his beak in the bark of the nut-pine, red- 
w^ood, Californian white oak, and Western yellow pine, and 
then storing acorns in them for his winter use. The holes are 
just large and deep enough to hold each an acorn, which is 
hammered in so that there is no danger of its falling out. The 
acorns on the northern side of the trees, where they are pro- 
tected from the rains, w^hich come from the southward, often 
keep good for years. The bark of the nut-pine is preferred, 
probably being softer and more regular in grain than other 
bark. The holes are bored to within two or three feet of the 
ground, and to a height of fifty feet — sometimes, but rarely, in 
the limbs as well as the trunk. From thirty to fifty holes are 
often found in a square foot. In seasons when or places where 
acorns are rare, the woodpecker will put away hazel-nuts in the 
same manner. The squirrels often plunder the stores, and then 
the birds attack the thieves, darting down upon them and peck- 



132 RESOURCES OF CA.LIFOENIA. 

ing them with their beaks. When the squirrel sees the prop- 
erty-owner coming, he hm'ries to a hole, or gets under a limb, 
where the woodpecker cannot conveniently strike him. Some- 
times Indians and even white men are glad to avail themselves 
of the woodj^ecker's stores as a protection against starvation. 

The length of the bird is nine inches ; the anterior part of 
the body above and the tail are black ; the belly, rump, a patch 
on the forehead, and a collar on the neck, white; and the 
crown, and a short occipital crest, red. Dr. Newberry says : 
" This beautiful bird, the rival and representative of the red- 
headed woodpecker [of the Atlantic slope of the conthient], is 
an inseparable element of the scenery of the Sacramento val- 
ley. While we were encamped under the wide-spreading oaks 
of that region, I had a very good opportunity to study their 
habits, as they would come into the trees in the shade of which 
I was lying. They are not shy, and frequently came round in 
considerable numbers. Their manners are the very counter- 
part of the Eastern ' red-head,' and their rattling cry is not 
unlike his. Like the ' red-head,' I have seen two or three of 
them amuse themselves by playing 'hide and seek' around 
some trunk or branch ; and like the ' red-head,' too, they de- 
light to sit on the end of a dry limb, and fly ofl' in circles for 
the insects which come near them." 

Lewis's woodpecker is in color dark glossy green above and 
gray beneath, with dark-crimson patches on the sides of the head 
and belly. The feathers on the under part are bristle-like. It 
prefers an elevated home, and is found ten and twelve thou- 
sand feet above the sea. 

§ 101. Humming-Birds. — There are four humming-birds in 
California, all different from those found in the Atlantic states. 
The white-throated swift, a bird resembling the sAvallow, but 
smaller, is common ii) the Colorado Basin. We have a whip- 
poor-will different from the one known in the Eastern states. 
Two night-hawks are found in our state, one of them appear- 
ing on this slope of the continent only in the vicinity of the 
Colorado, and on the other slope not extending far beyond the 



ZOOLOGY. 133 

Rio Grande. The belted king-fisher [Ceryle alcyon) is at 
home in CaUfornia as well as in all other parts of the couti 
nent. 

§ 102. Fly-catcher. — The family of fly-catchers [Colopteri- 
dce)^ which connects the non-melodious with the true singing 
Lirds, is represented in California by eleven species, most of 
which are not seen in the Atlantic states. They are small 
birds, from five to nine inches in length, and their colors are 
usually dull. Most of them have their upper mandible bent 
down abruptly at the tip ; and they always have twelve feath- 
ers in the tail. One of the most common and the best-known 
of the fly-catchers is the bird called the " pewee." 

§ 103. Singers. — The zoological sub-order called seines., or 
singers, has one hundred and nine species in our state, inclu- 
ding two mocking-birds, three thrushes, two blue-birds, three 
robins, three larks, five black-birds, eleven finches, six wrens, 
six swallows, six warblers, one martin, one bunting, six tit- 
mouses, one snow-bird, two grosbeaks, one cow-bird, one ori- 
ole, one crow, three ravens, three jays, one water-ouzel, two 
magpies, and so on. Some of these birds are not called " sing- 
ers" in common language, but they all belong to the Oscines 
sub-order, which is marked by a peculiar muscular apparatus 
for singing, composed of five pairs of muscles in the throat. 
Though there are many species of Oscines in the state, yet the 
birds are not so numerous, so melodious, nor are they heard so 
often, as the feathered songsters in the Eastern states. The 
traveller may proceed for days in the Sacramento Basin, during 
the summer season, without hearing more than a few chirps. 
Our singing-birds have been multiplying very rapidly of late, 
because of the settlement and cultivation of the land, whereby 
their supply of wholesome and palatable food is much increased, 
and their enemies the hawks are driven away. Most of our 
i swallows, one mocking-bird, one black-bird, and one raven, 
found in California, are also seen east of the Mississippi ; but 
all our jays, robins, blue-birds, and magpies, and our oriole, 
are of species not found in the Atlantic states. The majority 



134 KKSOrSCKS OW ■CXI.ITO^'SIA 

of the Oseutes indigenow s on tiiis eosst are mikiiown in the 
oldta^ st^es. Our inoding-biids are nerer domesticated, and 
are not to be compared to the mocknig-bird of Yirginia. 

§ 104. Seratckers. — The omithcdogical order of Sataret, or 
Bcratchers, is represente=i in California bv eleven species, name- 
1 J : one pigeon, two doves, three grouse, two quails, ome par- 
tridge, and one sand-hill crane. The pigeon, partridge, grouse, 
quails, and <xie of the doves, are specifically different from the 
birds known by the same name east of the Mis^ssip^ The 
vild-turkey is not foimd in our state. 

The most abundant and prominent of our scrmtdiers, the 
Califomian quail {Lcphortyx caH/bmirv^y. is found in aD the 
faUeys of California and Or^pcm. Its breast and upper parts 
are lead-cc^red, with an o&ve-brown gloss oa the back and 
wings ; the chin and throat are Uack. with a white line run- 
n: _ ' rd fixHn the eye ; the forehead is brownish-ydlow ; 

-^ '^baC with an orsmge-brown round spot in the 

^ _' to white at the sides; the feathss on the 

bn^ and si e a central streak of white, and those on 

the top and aides of the neck have black edgings. The head 
bears a crest numboing £rom three to six feathers, usually 
:five. about an inch and a half loa^. The diafts are bare, veiy 
slsri^ier. and. though all are in a straight line on the longitu- 
dinal medial line of the head, they are so near togedier as to 
look like but one shaft, more especially as the fine, fur-like 
bushes at their tivps aU ecHnbine to icana a compact little plume. 
These feathers are usnafly erect, the plume leaning forward 
when the Inrd is trying to look its best in the pres«ace of com- 
pany ; but whoi running about in the grass, and not thinking 
of its a{^>earaDce, the crest is lowered, jEiUing forward over the 
bilL 

The Caiifomian quail has two c : Vr- — 'ir song and the caD- 
The S4Mig of the Atlantic quail is in fw" — the well-known 

whistle, sounding like *" Bob- White."* T _' of the Cali- 

fivnian quail has but one note, beginning ^^e ihe "" £ob^ and 
filing like the *~ White'' of its Ej^tem rdbtive. Tbe <*^^-Tk of 



ZOOLOGY. 135 

tlie Atlantic and Pacific quails are nearly alike, and may be 
represented by the syllables " hire-he." — " As a game-bird," 
says Dr. Xewberry, " the Califurnian quail is inferior to the 
Eastern one, though perhaps of equal excellence for the table. 
It does not lie as well to the dog, and does not aiford a good 
sport. It also takes a tree more readily than the Atlantic 
quail. Like its Eastern relative, the cock-bird is very fond of 
sitting on some stump or log projecting' above the grass and 
weeds which conceal his mate and nest or brood, and espe- 
cially in the early morning, uttering his peculiar cry." 

The plumed quail [Oreortyx pictus), likewise called the 
*' mountain quail," while the Lophortyx callfornicus is often 
styled the " valley quail," is peculiar to this coast, and is one of 
the most beautiful features of its ornithology. It is a ^Jartridge 
ten inches long, very plump in shape, handsome in color, ma- 
jestic in its bearing, and graceful in motion. Its head is sur- 
mounted by a crest of two straight feathers, three and a half 
inches long, which hang backward, one immediately over the 
other. The breast and neck are lead-colored, the upper parts 
generally olive-brown ; the throat, and head beneath the eyes, 
orange-chestnut; the abdomen white. There are numerous 
variegations of white, black, and minor shades, on the j^lumage, 
all contributing to heighten its beauty. 

The mountain partridge lives in the hills and mountains, 
from the Tejon Pass to the Columbia Kiver. Its song sug- 
gests the sound represented by the word " whoit," whistled 
fuller and louder than the song of the Californian quail. It 
roosts upon the ground; and if bushes be near, in which to 
hide, it will rather run than fly from its enemies. It seldom 
flies more than two hundred yards at a time. The cock is 
equally attentive with the hen to the young brood, which usu- 
ally varies from eiglit to twelve in number. The flimilies seem 
to be much attached to each other, and if they are scattered, 
they are very uneasy until all are collected again. In such 
cases, the hunter can entice them to come to him by imitating 
the call of either old or young. They are easily domesticated 



136 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

— more readily than their brethren of the valley. The moun- 
tain partridge hates the quail, and when brought into its pres- 
ence always attacks it; the smaller bird makes no resistance. 

Gambel's quail {Lovphortyx gainbelli) is a bird differing from 
the Californian quail only in having duller colors, and is per- 
haps specifically the same, the difference in color being a mere 
accident of climate. Occasionally, white quails, very similar 
in form and size to the Lophortyx calif or nicus^ are found near 
Humboldt Bay. 

The sage-cock, or cock of the plains {Centrocercus urophasi- 
anits)^ the largest of the American grouse, often weighing five 
or six pounds, inhabits the dry plains in the vicinity of Pit 
River. It is sometimes twenty-nine inches long, and forty-two 
inches across from tip to tip of outstretched wings. Its color 
above is variegated with black, brown, brownish-yellow, and 
whitish-yellow ; its breast is white, its belly black. The male 
has bare, flame-colored patches of skin on the neck, which are 
ordinarily hidden by the feathers, but which are plainly visible 
when he struts about before the hen, with his neck puffed out 
like a pouter pigeon's. 

The sharp-tailed grouse {Pediocmtes phasianellus) is also 
found in the northeastern corner of the state. It is eighteen 
inches long, light brownish-yellow above, varied with black, 
and white beneath, the feathers on the breast and sides having 
brown marks shaped like a V. The tail is long and sharp, the 
central feathers and the others growing gradually shorter as 
they approach the sides ; there are eighteen feathers in the 
tail. 

The dusky grouse {Tetrao ohscurus) inhabits the coniferous 
forests of the Sierra Nevada, in the northeastern part of the 
state. The cock, according to common report, is the hand- 
somest of all the American grouse. It is twenty inches long, 
dark-brown above, mottled with lead-color, and lead-color be- 
neath. There are twenty feathers in the tail, which is broadly 
tipped with a light slate-color. 

The baud-tailed pigeon ( Colimiba fasciata\ the only wild 



ZOOLOGY. 137 

pigeon found on the Pacific coast, bcais a strong resemblance 
in form, size, and color, to its congener in the Atlantic states, 
and has similar habits, but is not numerous. Small flocks mi- 
grate through the state every spring and autumn, and some 
of them spend the summer here. 

The white-winged dove {JSIdophelia leucoptera) has been 
seen in the southern part of the state, but is very rare. It has 
white spots on its wings,- whence its common and technical 
names are derived. 

The common dove {Zenaidura caroUnensis) of the Atlantic 
slope is found on the Pacific slope as well. 

The sand-hill crane ( Gn(s canadensis) are found from the 
meridian of Cincinnati to the Pacific, and are not rare in Cali- 
fornia. They spend the winters in our valleys, and in the 
s})ring migrate to the Klamath Lakes and farther north, where 
they spend their summers and breed. Subsisting upon vege- 
table food exclusively, they are themselves good to eat, and 
are frequently seen in the San Francisco market. 

§ 105. Waders. — The order of waders (Grallatoi^es) is rep- 
resented in California by forty-one species of birds, namely : 
one crane, two herons, two bitterns, one fly-up-the-creek, one 
ibis, six plovers, one oyster-catcher, two turnstones, one avoi- 
set, three phalaropes, one stilt, one willet, one godwit, one 
curlew, five snipes, five sand-pipers, one sanderling, three rails, 
and one coot. The oyster -catcher, one turnstone, one plover, 
and one heron, are the only species in the list not found east 
of the Mississippi, and none of them have such value or pecu- 
liarities as would give interest to a particular description of 
them. 

§ 106. Swimmers. — California has sixty-six species of the 
order of swimmers {Natatores) : of these there are t^vo swans, 
six geese, twenty-two ducks, four albatross, two petrels, seven 
gulls, four terns, three pelicans, three cormorants, four guille- 
mots, one loon, and various miscellaneous species. One swan, 
all the albatrosses, five gulls, the two petrels, the loon, and one 
guillemot, are found only on this coast. 



138 KESOrK'ES OF CAI.IFOKNIA. 

The tmmpeteTHSwan {Cy^mts bveetMator) is a very large 
bird, nieasiuriiig fire teet from the point of the bill to the eod of 
the tail, and six feet sa^toss from tip to tip of the ontstretched 
vings. The plumage is snowy-white in color, its l^s and bill 
hln^ The i^uoie of " trumi^ter" is giren to it because cdT its 
cUrion-like scream, which is heard as it flies. It frequents : 
lakes in the northern and northeastern parts of the s\ate, :i: 
is scHnetim^ se«i in the riTers, It is a shy bird, and is rar . ; 
killed- 

The American swan, toimd also <m the Atlantic slope of the 
contiEKfflt, is simiLvr in ap^pearance and size to the trumpeter, 
but lacks its loud voice, and is otherwise distinguishable from 
it chiefly by having an orange-colored spot on its bill in front 
of the eye, whereas the biU of the Cy^HMS hmceinaBtcr is en- 
tindy Uack. 

Wild geese are very abundant in Cahfomia during the 
spring and I^U, when they pass through on xh&r migratioos. 
Among them are the Canada goose {BerniHa eeuutdemtis}^ the 
snow-goose (^IjMer Ayperboneus)^ the white-footed goose, or 
" speckled belly'' ( JL#«*cr erytkroptUys Hutehins^s goose (JSer- 
MiW<ti hiii€kiH*ii)y and the black brandt {Btrnicia fiiffricins). 
Hutchias's goose is mOTe abimdant than any of the others. 
Some of thtm, while in the state, get all th^ food in the tules ; 
others in the spring resort to the fields of young grain, where 
they pasture. Dr. Xewberry says : "* I was much interested in 
noticing the pertect harmony of intercourse ivhich seemed to ex- 
ist anK>ng the smaller species. Tbey intermingled freely while 
feeding, and when alarmed arose without separation ; and I 
have seal a triangle flying steadily high over my head, com- 
posed of individuals of three species, eadi plainly distinguish- 
akde by its plumage, but each holding its place in the geomet- 
linl figure, as though it was composed of entirely hc«nogene- 
oos material ; periiaps unequal members of the darker speeies, 
with three, four, or UMte pure aiow- while geese flying togeth- 
er somewhere in the converging lines-'' 

Among the ducks of California are the mallard and canvas 



ZOOLOGY. 139 

l):ick. Tlie meat of the latter has not so fine a flavor as in the 
Eastern states, probably because it does not here find the wild 
celery upon whicli it feeds along the streams of the middle 
states. 

Many of the geese and ducks pass the winter in California, 
where they find an abundance of food in the grain-fields and 
tules. 

The murre, or foolish guillemot ( Uria ri7igvin)^ is similar to 
the gulls, seventeen inches long, dark-brown above and white 
beneath, with transverse stripes of ashy-brown on its sides. Its 
throat is brown in summer and white in winter. It frequents 
tlie islands along the coast, and lays its eggs there on the bare 
ground or rocks. These eggs are wonderfully irregular in 
form, size, and color, but are generally about three and a half 
inches long, sea-green in color, with dark-brown spots of angu- 
lar shapes on them: Quantities of these eggs are obtained ev- 
ery year at the Farallones, and are sold in the San Francisco 
market at about half the price of hen's eggs per dozen, or, if 
taken by weight, at one-fourth. Their taste, however, is rank, 
and they are not used by those who can afibrd to buy the 
hen's eorcrj?. 

Dr. Heermann says : " At one o'clock every day during the 
Q^^ season, Sundays and Thursdays excepted (this is to give 
the birds some little respite), the egg-hunters meet on the 
south side of the island. The roll is called, to see that all are 
l)resent, that each one may have an eqtial chance in gathering 
the spoil. The signal is given, every man starting oif at a full 
rim for the most productive egging-grounds. The gulls [TjCirus 
occidentalism Western gull), understanding, apparently, what is 
about to occur, are on the alert, hovering overhead, and await- 
ing only the advance of the party. The men rush eagerly into 
tlie rookeries ; the aifrighted murres have scarcely risen from 
tlieir nests, before the gull, with remarkable instinct, not to 
say almost reason, flying but a few paces ahead of the hunter, 
alights on the ground, tapping such eggs as the short time 
will allow, before the egger comes up with him. The broken 



140 RESOUKCES OF CALIFORXIA. 

eggs are passed by the men, who remove only those which are 
sound. The gull, then returning to the field of its exploits, 
procures a plentilul supply of its favorite food." 

§ 107. Irishes. — The fishes of the coast and rivers of Califor- 
nia are all diflerent from those of the Atlantic side of the conti- 
nent, with the exception, perhaps, of one species of the hahbut. 
The cod and shad, two of the most important fishes of the sea 
of the Eastern shore, and the lobster among crustaceans, are 
here wanting, as also the cat-fish kind in the rivers. Otherwise 
our waters are probably as rich in game for the fisherman as 
those of any country. 

§ 108. Sabnon. — The most important fish of California is the 
quinnat salmon (Sahno quinnat)^ a species found from Point 
Conception to the Columbia River. Its color above is oliva- 
ceous brown, changing to salmon-color beneath. The largest 
one ever caught weighed sixty-two pounds ; the common size 
is from ten to thirty pounds. The salmon are born in the rivers, 
but go down to the sea, where they spend part of every year. 
They commence to enter the bay of San Francisco in Novem- 
ber, and continue to come in for three or four months. They 
ascend the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and some of 
their smaller tributaries, deposit their spawn, and in .June go 
out to sea again. They come in lean and go out lean, but in the 
late winter and early spring they are fat. There are two com- 
mon popular errors, that the salmon do not eat after leaving 
the sea, and that they never get back alive. The former error 
is owing to the fact that no large articles of food are found in 
its stomach, and the latter to the fact that when going out all 
are lean, and that many are found dead along the banks of 
salmon-streams. But the salmon find their chief food in mi- 
nute animalculeT, and not in fish, for catching which they seem 
to be so well fitted, with their large mouths and sharp teeth. 
It is well known that the salmon bite like trout, and furnish 
excellent sport in clear water to the skilful fisherman with the 
fly. They dislike the mud with which the streams emptying 
into San Francisco Bay are filled by the miners, and therefore 



ZOOLOGY. 141 

do not go f:ir fiom tlie sea or ascend the small tributaries ; but 
elsewhere they ascend every little brook, up to points where 
there is scarcely enough water for them to swim ; and in these 
expeditions they are so much exhausted and bruised that they 
soon die ; but the number thus killed is as nothing compared 
with those which go out to sea again. The female salmon 
having found a suitable place, uses her nose to dig a trench in 
the sand about six feet long, a foot wide, and three inches 
deep, and having deposited her spawn in it, throws a little sand 
over it with her tail, and departs, leaving her eggs to be 
hatched and the oifspring to be fed as best they can. In the 
month of May the young salmon are found on their way to the 
sea, from three to six inches long. It is supposed that the 
salmon always return to the river in which they were born ; 
so that the salmon born in the Klamath River never enter San 
Francisco Bay, nor do those born in the Sacramento and San 
Joaquin Rivers ever enter Humboldt Bay. Although the sea- 
son in which salmon are abundant in tlie rivers extends from 
November to June, yet some of them are found in the streams 
of California at all seasons, and they can be had fresh in the 
San Francisco market every day in the year. 

The quinnat is the chief salmon of all the streams and bays 
of California, but Gairdner's salmon [Fario gairdneri) is found 
in the Klamath River, and the stellatus salmun in Humboldt 
Bay and its tributaries. Gairdner's salmon has a silvery-gray 
back, silvery sides, and a yellowish-white belly. The body has 
numerous indistinct, blackish spots. The stellatus salmon is 
light-olive in the back, yellowish-white on the belly, and rarely 
exceeds two or three pounds in weiglit. 

§ 109. Halibut. — There are two species of halibut on the 
coast of California, the Californian {H'qjpoglossus californicus) 
and the common [HqyjwglossKS vulgaris). There is some 
doubt whether the latter species is properly named ; if it be, 
then we have one species of fish foimd on the Atlantic coast. 
The Californian halibut is a slender fish, weighing at the 
largest twenty-five pounds, in color grayish-brown above and 



142 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

white below. The halibut prefer n colder climate, and are not 
sufficiently abundant in this latitude to sustain a special fish- 
ery ; but a few are in our market throughout the year. They 
live in deep water, and in places where the bottom is rocky. 
They eat little fish and shell-fish, and bite readily at the hook. 
Their meat is very delicate. 

§110. Tarhot. — The turbot i^PUuronycJitliys rugosus) is 
the only large flat-fish, except the halibut, found along our 
shore. It sometimes grows to weigh twenty pounds, but the 
common size is from three to ten pounds. The turbot inhabits 
deep waters and rocky bottoms, eats fish, and bites readily at 
the hook. It is one of the best fish in our market. 

§ 111. Sole. — We have four species of small flat-fish, com- 
monly called soles {Psettlchthys sordidus^ Psettichthys onela- 
nostictus, Parophrys vetnlus, and Platessa hlllneatd). They 
are so much alike, that they are^not distinguished from one 
another by fishermen generally. The Platessa bilineata is the 
largest, sometimes weighing two pounds ; the others rarely 
exceed one pound. They frequent the shallow waters of the 
bay of San Francisco, and are caught abundantly in nets at all 
seasons of the year. The flat-fishes do not bury themselves in 
the mud here through the winter, as they do in the North At- 
lantic. The soles feed on Crustacea, little fishes, and marine 
animalculse. 

§ 112. Mackerel. — ^I'he mackerel {Scomber diego) is found 
north of Point Conception. It is good, but not more than 
half as large as the Atlantic mackerel. The Californian mack- 
erel rarely exceeds ten inches in length. It lies near the sur- 
face of the water at sea, and is not fond of entering bays or 
going very near the shore. Like its Eastern congener, it bites 
readily at any white rag or shining white substance jerked 
through the water. 

§ 113. Pock-Pish. — The rock-fish furnish the main supply 
of fish in the San Francisco market. All belong to the genus 
Sebastes, of which there are eight species, the most important 
being the red (rosaceus), black {mela?i02:)s), and wharf rock- 



ZOOLOGY. 143 

jfish {auricidatus). The red rock fish grows to Aveigh twenty 
pounds; the other species rarely exceed four or five. The 
wharf rock-fish is the only one caught in the bay ; the others 
hve out at sea, in deep water and on rocky bottoms : they eat 
crabs and shell-fish, and bite freely at hooks. They are always 
hi market, and their meat is excellent at all seasons. 

§ 114. Sturgeon. — We have three species of sturgeon, of 
which the only important one is the Californian sturgeon (^Aci- 
2)enser brachi/rint/nis), which sometimes grows to be seven 
feet long and to weigh two hundred jDOunds. The sturgeon 
is a sea-fish, which enters fresh water to spawn, but it is 
caught in the bay of San Francisco and tributaries at all sea- 
sons of the year ; whereas in the Eastern states there are sea- 
sons for sturgeon in the market, as there are for beans and 
peas. 

The sturgeon eats the slimy matter, both animal and vege- 
table, at the bottom of the sea. It never bites, its mouth 
being circular in form, and fitted only for sucking. It has a 
habit of shooting up from the bottom and springing out of 
water, and then falling flat upon its belly, making a loud 
spfash — very diflferent from the porpoise, which also darts out 
of the water, but always strikes head first, making little noise. 
Some ichthyologists suppose that the object of the sturgeon in 
thus falling on the water is to free itself from parasites ; others 
that it is merely a kind of play. The spawning- season is not 
known precisely, but it is probably from December to May. 
The meat of the sturgeon is coarse, and in the market is worth 
only about one-fourth or one-sixth of that of the better table 
fishes ; but the sturgeon-fishery is profitable, because of the 
abundance and large size of the fish. 

§ 115. Jew-Fish. — The Jew-fish {Stereolepis gigas)^ one of 
the largest scale-fishes — weighing sometimes five hundred 
pounds — is abundant south of Point Conception, and rarely 
straggles as far north as San Fi-ancisco Bay. Only two have 
been caught near the Golden Gate, and one of them filled the 
city with wonder. It is a bottom-fish, living in deep and shoal 



144 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

water, and frequenting lagoons and kelp. It often comes to 
the surface, and, according to report, goes to sleep there. It 
bites readily at the hook, and may be taken with harpoons. 
The meat is very good. 

§116, Sun-Fish — The sun-fish { Orthagorisciis emails) is 
found occasionally south of Point Conception, where it is seen 
floating on the surface, in accordance with the habits of the 
genus everywhere. It weighs from one to a hundred pounds. 
Its form suggests the idea that the body has been cut oiF near 
the broadest part, and the tail sewed on. 

§117. Green-Fish. — The green-fish (Opplo7no?ia pcuitheri- 
7ia).) generally called cod in the San Francisco market, but 
having no relationship to the true cod, is abundant along the 
coast. It grows to be about two feet in length. The meat is 
coarse, and green in color ; and the fish has little commercial 
value. 

§ 118. SeaSass. — The sea-bass (Johnius nohilis) is a plain, 
oval fish, bluish-gray in color above, silvery below, weighing 
from fifteen to forty pounds. It is closely related to the weak- 
fish of the New York market. The meat is white and deli- 
cate, and always commands a high price in the mayket. It is 
a surface-fish, and sometimes enters the bays, but is not abun- 
dant anywhere. It is caught from March to November. 

§ 119. She.epshead. — The Californian sheepshead {Lahrus 
pulcher) is a black fish, with a broad, bright-red band sur- 
rounding the body, and weighs from one to twelve pounds. 
It has white, broad, projecting teeth, like those of a sheep. It 
has no relationship to the Atlantic sheepshead, but is a conge- 
ner of the black-fish of the New York market. The meat has 
a very fine flavor when fresh, but loses its delicacy after being 
dead a day or two. It is found south of Point Conception, 
on rocky and kelpy bottoms, from April to October. Its food 
is chiefly shell-fish. 

§ 120. Smelts. — We have four species of fish called smelts 
{Atherinopsis callforniensis^ Atherlnopsis offi.7iis, Osmerus 
preciosus, and Osmerus siinills). The Atherinopses are not 



ZOOLOGY. 145 

true smelts, but belong to the same genus with the sandeT- 
lings of tlie Atlantic, which last are thrown away, or used only 
as bait; Avhereas our AtJterinojyses are valuable fishes. The 
Atherinojysis calif orniensis forms the great bulk of the smelts 
in our market. It is the largest of the Pacific smelts, some- 
times reaching a length of fifteen inches, and a pound in weight. 
The Osrnerus species are small. All of them have bright silver 
bands along their sides. The smelts are more abundant here 
than on the Eastern coast, and are the best of our small fishes. 
They are caught at all seasons of the year ; in the bays with 
nets — never at sea, or with hooks. 

§ 121. Anchovies. — There are tw^o anchovies i^JEngraulis 
mordax and Engraulis nanus) on the coast of California. 
They are so nearly alike, that they are undistinguishable ex- 
cept by ichthyologists. Both are small, from four to six inches 
long, very delicate in flavor, but very bony. They are fully 
equal to the European anchovy for the table. They feed on 
minute animalculse, go in shoals, and are caught w^ith nets in 
the bays at all seasons of the year. 

§ 122. Sardine and Herring. — The sardine {Meletta ceru- 
lea) is abundant from Humboldt Bay to San Diego. It grows 
to a length of eight or nine inches, and is therefore much larger 
than the Mediterranean sardine, to which it is fully equal in 
flavor. It is found along the coast from April to October, and 
is caught in the bays with nets. 

The herring i^Clupea Tnirabilis) is not so abundant as the 
Atlantic species, nor so large, but is equal in flavor. It comes 
in the spring, and goes in the autumn. 

§ 123. Vivijmroiis Irishes. — The viviparous or embiotocoid 
fishes of this coast are a peculiar feature^ of its ichthyology. 
They constitute, perhaps, the most remarkable natural group 
of fishes in the world, and their discovery caused a marked 
sensation among zoologists. Other viviparous fishes had been 
previously known, but their young are brought forth in a very 
immature condition ; whereas the little embiotocoid fishes are 
born with a fulness of development similar to that of warm- 



146 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

blooded animals, and the moment after they leave the mother 
they are seen swimming and taking care of themselves. There 
are seventeen or eighteen species belonging to the several 
genera, among which the embiotoca and holconotis are promi- 
nent. All are marine fishes save one, which is fomid in fresh 
water. They weigh from half a pound to three pounds, and 
most of them are grayish brown above and silvery beneath. 
They are abundant in the market at all seasons of the year, 
and are called " perch" by the fishermen, though they have no 
relationship to the true perch. The meat is not good. The 
young are born from Aj^ril to August. 

§ 124. Fresh- Water Fishes. — Amono- the fresh-water fishes 
the most important is the brook-trout [Salar iridea), which is 
found in all the mountain-streams of the state, and offers fine 
sport for fly-fishing. It not unfrequently grows to weigh two 
pounds, and, if report is to be believed, sometimes reaches ten 
and twelve pounds. In appearance and flavor it is similar to 
the trout of other countries. 

A fish called the salmon-trout [Ptychocheilus grandis)., but 
not related to the salmon, the trout, or the salmon-trout, is 
found in all the large rivers and lakes of California. It grows 
to weigh thirty pounds. Its teeth are not in the mouth, but 
in the throat, where it crushes such shell-fish as it feeds upon. 
It bites voraciously, and is caught with the hook and with 
nets. The meat is poor, bony, and insipid. It is brought to 
the market in winter. The small ones are called pikes. 

A chub {Tycjorna crass Iccmda)., and two suckers (Catosto- 
nms lahiatus and Catostomus occidentalls), never weighing 
more than three pounds, are also found in our rivers. Tliey 
are not valuable, 

§ 125. Shell-Fish and Crustaceans. — We have five species 
of shell-fish valuable for the table: one oyster, two muscles, 
one cockle, and a soft-shelled clam. The oysters are small, 
not finely-flavored, nor abundant. We have no lobster, but a 
prawn [Palbiuris)., very similar to the lobster in size, color, 
flavor, habits, and general appearance, except that it lacks the 



ZOOLOGY. 147 

large claws. Crabs are abundant. The abelone or aulone 
(I/aliotis) is found as far north as Point Reyes, and abounds 
south of Point Conception. It is a moUusk with one shell, 
from five to seven inches across ; the shells are beautifully 
irid^ent, and are much used in the arts for buttons, knife- 
handles, inlaying, &c. Many vessels are engaged in fishing 
for them. The abelones stick to the rocks and to each other, 
collecting in some places in masses two feet thick ; the fisher- 
men break them oflT from the rocks with a spade. When the 
abelones do not suspect danger, they loosen their hold and 
raise their shells from the rock, and then the fisherman may 
easily thrust his spade down along the surface of the stone ; 
but if he alarms the abelone beforehand, he finds the shells 
fastened down to the rock with great power, and all the 
strength of a man is scarcely sufiicient to pry one of them off*. 
The meat of the abelone is eaten by the Chinese, who dry 
them ; the dried meat resembles horn in its color and hard- 
ness, and in shape looks as though it might be the hoof of a 
colt. 

The shrimp ( Crmigon franciscorum) is found in the bays 
of California, and was very abundant a few years ago, but 
lately is getting scarce, at least in San Francisco Bay. 

§ 126. Reptiles. — The snakes of California are not large, 
numerous, nor remarkable. Only one of them, the rattlesnake, 
is poisonous. 

Tlie scorpion is found in the w^armer portions of the state, 
but is not abundant. 

Tarantulas are common in Calaveras, Mariposa, Fresno,. and 
Tulare counties. They belong to the same genus with the 
spiders, but the body grows to be three inches long and an 
inch wide, and the entire length from end to end of out- 
stretched legs is five inches. The body and legs are covered 
with silky, brown hair. The tarantula eats little insects of 
various kinds, but, unlike most other spiders, has no net. It 
lives in a hole in the ground not much larger than itself when 
pressed into the smallest compass, and the hole is covered by 



148 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

a little door on a hinge, which closes by its own weight or by 
a spring. In the top of the door are several little holes, into 
which the tarantula can insert its claws when it wishes to en- 
ter; and so quick are its motions when terrified, that it often 
disappears suddenly under the eyes of men pursuing i^a^nd 
they have great difficulty in finding its hiding-place-. The 
door fits tightly, and is larger on the outside, so that it never 
sticks fast. 

The bite of the tarantula is poisonous, but not fatal — or at 
least has never, so far as I know, proved fatal in California. It 
rarely bites men, and generally flees when it discovers their i 
approach. The tarantulas have dangerous enemies in several 
species of wasps, the females of which kill them by thrusting 
eggs into their bodies. When the larvae of the wasp are 
hatched, they make food of the carcass. So soon as the taran- ; 
tula dies, the wasp drags it to her hole, usually the deserted 
burrow of a spermophile, where she may collect twenty or 
thirty dead tarantulas in one. season. There are three differ- 
ent species of these wasps; one kind is blue, another yellow. 
Sometimes the wasp darts down repeatedly upon the taran- 
tula, and does not touch him except with her egg-planter, de- 
positing an egg at every thrust. On other occasions the two 
grapple, and the wasp continues to insert her eggs until the 
tarantula dies. The editor of a newspaper of Mai'iposa thus 
describes the killing of a tarantula : " Some of our readers may 
have heard of the tenacity with which the venomous tarantula 
is pursued by an inveterate enemy, in the form of a huge wasp 
— invariably resulting in the defeat and death of the former. 
We were an eye-witness to one of these conflicts last week, 
while on a ramble among the adjacent hills. This is the sea- 
son when the poisonous tarantula leaves his well-fishioncd 
abode to perambulate the dusty roads and smooth paths so 
often trod by the industrious miners, and about their haunts a 1 1 
dozen or so may be seen any day, of this hideous enlargement 
of the spider-race, within a circuit of a few yards, leisurely 
wending their way along the roads and by-ways. Often have 



ZOOLOGY. l-^O 

we m.'irked, Avith attentive curiosity, his awkward gait while 
lifting his long, mnWeldy legs above the short blades of grass, 
and wondered for what uses and purposes this ugly little mon- 
ster was placed upon this beautiful globe. While attentively 
watching the motions of one of these insects during our w\alk, 
we were much surprised to see the object of our attractioi^ 
suddenly stop short in his wanderings and raise itself up to its 
full height, as though watching the coming of some unwelcome 
visitor. We at first supposed that it had just espied us, and 
was expecting danger at our hands ; but upon our retreating a 
f«w steps, he quickly crouched behind a tuft of dried grass, and 
remaining very quiet, seemed to make himself as small as pos- 
sible. A slight buzzing was heard in the air, and in a moment 
a wasp passed near, hovering on the wing over his trembling 
victim, the much-dreaded tarantula. Like some bird of prey, 
the wasp remained thus poised a moment, and then, quick as 
thought, darted down uj^on the enemy, and stung him many 
times with great rapidity. The tarantula, smarting under the 
pain, began a retreat, with all the speed of which he was ca- 
pable ; but the wasp hung over him with wonderful tenacity, 
and again and again struck him with his venomous sting. 
Gradually the flight of the tarantula became slower and more 
irregular, and at length, under the repeated thrusts of his con- 
queror, he died, biting the grass with his terrible fangs." 

Locusts and grasshoppers are abundant in the valleys ; mus- 
quitoes in the tules, and along the streams in the Sacramento 
Basin ; and fleas everywhere. 

§ 127. Honey-Dew Aphis. — Among the noteworthy insects 
of the state is one which secretes a sweet liquid called " honey- 
dew," and deposits it on trees. It is transparent, thick hke 
honey, and sweet, sometimes with a bitter after-taste, but more 
frequently having a flavor like parched corn. The leaves and 
twigs are covered with it, the deposit usually being nearly 
even, occasionally in spots or drops. The honey-dew is more 
frequently found on oak-trees than on any other tree or bush ; 
and oftener in dry seasons, and remote from the coast, than in 



160 EESOUECES OF CALIFOENIA. 

wet weather or within the reach of the sea-fogs. A kind of 
molasses may be made by breaking off the twigs covered with 
the secretion, and boiUng them in water. 

Honey-dew is found in most countries where the soil is bar- 
ren or the climate dry, and may be the same with the manna 
of4he Hebrews. It is known, too, that various insects secrete 
sweet liquids; and some of the Ajyhis genus are kept as milch- 
cows by the ants, which stroke them down or tickle them with 
their antennae, when they want some of the sweet milk, and 
the captive Aphis obligingly squeezes out the secretion through 
her sides, which is industriously gathered by the milk-ants. 

ISToTE. — Xearly all the iuforraation about the quadrupeds and birds of Cali- 
fornia, heretofore printed, may be found in the papers of Dr. J. S. Newberry 
and Professor S. F. Baird, in the United States Pacific Eaih'oad Survey Re- 
ports. Most of my information about the fishes and fisheries, and much even 
of the language, is derived from the conversation of Dr. "W. 0. Ayres, of San 
Francisco ; and I hope that, as he is the most competent man, he will some 
day treat the subject in a special work. 



AQBICULTURE, 151 



CHAPTER yil. 

1 AGRICULTURE. 

1 

§ 128. General Remarks. — Of the 160,000 square miles in 
the area of California, about 60,000 may be tillable; of which 
H 16,000 are in the coast valleys, 30,000 in the low lands of the 
•Sacramento Basin, 12,000 in the Sierra Nevada, and 2,000 in 
the Klamath Basin : while the 25,000 square miles of the Great 
I^a^in, the 15,000 of the Colorado Desert within the limits of 
J this state, 30,000 of the Sierra Nevada, 26,000 of the Coast 
Mountains, and 6,000 of the Klamath Basin, may be put down 
as unfit for the plough*. The 60,000 square miles of tillable 
land contain nearly 40,000,000 acres, but only 1,000,000 are 
cultivated in the state : of the remaining 39,000,000, one-fourth 
have a soil very thin, or not fertile because of the presence of 
alkaline substances ; one-half are too remote from market, even 
where the soil is good ; and a considerable portion is tied up 
in lawsuits, so that the ownership is doubtful, and the claim- 
ants dare not improve it for fear of losing the improvements. 
Only a small portion of the state is,, therefore, fit for the plough. 
Not more than one acre in ten could now be tilled profitably, 
and I suppose that not more than one acre in four will be tilled 
during this century. 

As compared with the great agricultural states of the Mis- 
sissippi valley, in so far as relates to the proportion of rich land 
i fit for the plough, California is at a great disadvantage, and is 
probably inferior in this respect to every state on the Atlantic 
slope of the continent. In Illinois and Indiana, nearly every 
root of land has a rich soil and a level position. Again, Call- 



Ib^ KESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

fornia is at a great clisadvantage as compared with her sister- 
states east of the Rocky Mountains, in the proportion of land 
fitted for growing a variety of crops. In the northern part of 
the Mississippi vStlley, nearly every acre will produce all the 
main articles of cultivation — fruits, maize, potatoes, and gar- 
den vegetables, as well as wheat and oats. In this state, how- 
ever, of the 40,000,000 tillable acres, at least 30,000,000 are so 
dry, that they cannot, because of the want of moisture, and 
the impossibility of irrigation, be made to produce any crop 
save small grain ; and of the remaining 10,000,000 acres, three- 
fourths will not yield fruits, maize, potatoes, pumpkins, or gar- 
den vegetables, without irrigation. 

These are undoubtedly very serious drawbacks to the agri- 
culture of the state, but we have great advantages in many 
other points. The climate in the valleys, for instance, is so 
warm and the sky so clear through the winter, that vegetable 
life upon moist ground is almost as active in January as in 
July ; and our trees and shrubs have nearly twice as much 
time to grow and mature as in the free states of the East, 
where frost reigns from October to May. It is a well-known 
fact that California has produced larger specimens of garden 
vegetables, more thrifty growth and rapid development of 
fruit-trees, and larger crops of small grain to the acre, than 
any state in the Union, and many persons have supposed our 
soil to be richer. This supposition is erroneous, as I am satis- 
fied ; the superiority of the Californian productions is owing to 
the more favorable climate. I am not aware that any com- 
parison of our soils has been made by chemical analysis with 
those of Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio ; but the proba- 
bility is, that the latter are more fertile. The loam is deeper; 
the vegetation has been greater, and it has enriched the soil 
by the accumulation of its decomposed remains through thou- 
sands of years ; whereas in the valleys of California, the vege- 
tation is comparatively scanty, and the air is too dry to permit 
a decomposition of wood or grass to enrich the soil. The bot- 
tom-lands of the Sacramento and San Joaquin are far mferior 



J 



AG III CULTURE. 153 

in depth, blackness, and fertility of loam, to the valleys of the 

I Miami, Wabash, and Illinois Rivers. 

§ 129. Agricultural Districts. — Let us now consider the dif- 
ferent districts in the state suitable for agriculture. These dis- 
tricts, as I have said before, compose only a small part of Califor- 
nia, and have strongly-marked boundaries. They are nearly 
all valley-land, shut in by mountains. The Great Utah Basin 
has very little tillable land in the state ; there are small patches 
of fertile soil, but too slight to deserve special mention. The 
Colorado Basin is in about the same condition. It is possible 
that a considerable tract of land will be rendered fit for tillaore 
by turning the Colorado into the low part of the desert ; but 
this is a remote contingency, and we have no accurate infor- 
mation about the character of the soil which it is projijosed to 
irrigate in this manner. In a few little valleys, however, just 
at the eastern foot of the Coast Range, the soil is fertile, and 
the climate so warm, that fruits ripen six weeks earlier than 
on the western side. 

The largest tracts of tillable land in the Klamath Basin are 

^ the Scott and Shasta valleys, each about thirty miles long and 
four wide. They are elevated from three to four thousand 

', feet above the sea ; the winters are severe, and frosts common 
in spring and autumn, and not rare in summer. Most of the 
soil is a gravelly clay, with a rich, sandy loam, along the im- 
mediate borders of the streams. Wheat, oats, apples, and 

^potatoes, do well; but maize, peaches, melons, tomatoes, and 
sweet-potatoes, require a warmer climate. There is some level 
land in the eastern part of the Klamath Basin, near the Kla- 
math Lakes, but the soil is barren, and the vegetation like 
that of a desert. Del Norte county, which may be said to 

'belong to the Klamath Basin, has 44,117 acres of land, of 
wliich 15,240 are covered with redwood, 7,277 with spruce, 
19,204 are prairie, 2,400 are sand-ridges, and 4,712 are in la- 
goons. Most of the redwood land is level and fertile, but the 
timber is dense almost beyond example, and could not be 

.cleared profitably, because all the redwood stumps throw out 



154 KESOTJECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

sprouts, which grow up to trees. Much of the prairie-land is 
fertile and suitable for cultivation, but it is remote from the 
market. Klamath and Trinity counties are almost destitute 
of valley-land. Both, however, have numerous small spots of 
rich soil in their mountains, and both have a mining popula- 
tion who must be fed, and have the means and disposition to 
pay well for the necessaries and delicacies of life. The farms 
must be small, but the farmers are protected by the rugged 
mountains from the competition of those in the large valleys. 
Hay-Fork valley, one of the best little tracts of tillable land in 
Trinity county, is three thousand six hundred feet above the 
sea-level. 

The largest tract of level land in the plateau of the Sierra 
Nevada is the valley of Suisun River and Honey Lake, about 
sixty miles long and ten wide. The elevation is about four 
thousand five hundred feet above the sea ; much of the soil is 
sandy and alkaline, with no indigenous vegetation save the 
worthless wild sage. Portions of the soil, however, are fertile, 
and there are a number of farms under cultivation. Honey 
Lake valley has the advantage of proximity to Washoe, and 
good roads for coramuDication. There are 115,000 acres in 
the valley, of which 20,000 are swampy, at least in wet sea- 
sons. Eagle Lake valley is about one-third the size of Honey 
Lake valley, and of similar soil. <\ 

All along the western slope of the Sierra Nevada there are 
little spots of fertile soil, well suited for cultivation ; but with 
the exception of a few, they are too small to deserve special 
mention. The soil is usually a red clay or a black loam. The- 
largest tillable spots on the western descent of tlie Sierra Ne- 
vada are in Plumas county. Sierra valley is forty-live miles 
long by six wide, and is drained by a tributary of Feather 
River. Much of the land is barren sand ; much is tule-swamp, 
and only a small portion is fit for tillage. No water flows from 
the valley after July. The Big Meadows contain 100,000 
acres ; Beckworth's valley, 90,000 ; Indian valley, 20,000 ; 
Mountain Meadows, Red Clover valley, and Mohawk valley, 



1: 



AGKICULTUEE. 155 

10,000 acres each ; and American valley, 5,000. In all of them 
the soil is very sandy, but not barren. They are from three to 
five thousand feet above the sea ; all shut in by high moun- 
tains; and all containing a considerable portion of swampy 
land. 

The low land of the Sacramento Basin comprises 20,000 
square miles — about 3,000,000 acres. The Sacramento valley 
has several benches. The lowest bench. is about twenty feet 
above the low-water mark of the river, and has a soil of sandy 
loam, richer immediately along the stream than farther off. 
The next bench, very .rregular in height and width, has a soil 
of red, gravelly clay, which extends back to the mountains. 
In some places this clay becomes very soft in wet seasons — so 
soft, that weak cattle may mire down in it and be miable to 
extricate themselves. I knew a case where a team of weak 
oxen, exhausted by hard driving and scanty food, sank down 
in a wet gravel-ridge, so that only their heads raid a little of 
their necks and shoulders appeared above-ground ; and passing 
the place some months later, when the ground liad become as 
hard as clay and gravel ever are, I saw the six bare skulls of 
the oxen resting with their chins on the earth where they had 
sunk down, and behind them were the projecting spines of the' 
back-bone, with the yokes still on the necks of each pair of 
oxen. This gravel is seldom cultivated at present, but in many 
places it will produce good crops of barley. It forms at least 
one-half of the Sacramento valley. Very little of it can be irri- 
gated ; and the general belief is, that no corn, potatoes, garden 
vegetables, fruit, or grapes, can be grown on it without irriga- 
tion. The sandy loam produces large crops of wheat, barley, 
and oats, without irrigation. Fruit-trees and grape-vines thrive 
without it after they grow to be three or four years old, but 
in most places require it till they have taken a good start. 
Garden vegetables cannot be grown without irrigation, unless 
planted very early, and of such kinds a« ripen before July. In 
the level valley there are no springs, nor are there any artesian 
-wells ; so the only method of getting water is by pumping it 



156 RESOXJKCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

Tip from common wells, for which purpose windmills are ex- 
tensivolT used, and thus most of the water used for irrigration 
is obtained. A large part of the valley, especially of that near 
the rivers, is subject to overflow ; and about once in five years 
a flood comes, sweeping away houses, fences, and cattle, de- 
stroying gardens, and covering the earth with a thick clay, 
which, instead of enriching the soil, is far poorer than the an- 
cient deposits of sandy loam, made before the miners had com- 
menced to tear down the mountains for their golden treasures. 
In these times of flood, so much of the v^alley is covered with 
water, that it looks like a great lake, and the pilots of the river 
steamers know the channel only by the rows of trees along the 
banks, for the banks themselves are completely hidden from 
sight. The flood rarely comes earlier than January or later 
than March. 

The bottom-lands along the Feather River are considered 
richer than those near the banks of the Sacramento. Tribu- 
tary to Sacramento valley on the western side is Cache Creek 
valley, about twenty miles long by five wide ; and connected 
with it is Clear Lake valley, a basin nearly circular in shape, 
and twenty miles across, surrounded by mountains. Tlie lake 
is about one thousand feet above the sea. South of Cache 
Creek, and also tributary to the Sacramento valley, is Put ah 
Creek, which drains Berreyesa valley, twenty miles long by 
two wide. These little valleys have very rich land ; and being 
shut in by near mountains, the soil is much moister than out 
in the open plain. The nearer to the coast and the farther 
north, the greater the moisture as a general rule ; and it may 
almost be said that the value of the land depends upon the 
moisture. 

In the northwestern corner of the Sacramento Basin, along 
the banks of Cottonwood Creek, there are some beautiful, 
moist, and fertile little vales. The Sacramento valley has very 
few trees, save along the banks of the streams and stream- 
beds, where oaks, sycamores, laurels, willows, buckeyes, birch, 
and wild grape, are the i)rincipal growth, marking in summer 



AGRICULTURE. 157 

the places where the water runs in winter. The only trees 
growing away from the watercourses are oaks, which are 
usually found in groves, and almost invariably without under- 
growth. 

In the Sacramento valley there are about two hundred 
square miles, or one hundred and twenty-eight thousand acres, 
of tule-land, most of it above high tide, and covered by water 
only in times of flood. Very little of it has been drained or 
cultivated, and therefore we do not know its value. All the 
tule-land is covered five or six feet deep with water in times 
of flood. 

The northern part of the San Joaquin valley is much like 
the southern part of the Sacramento valley. When the San 
Joaquin River approaches within fifty miles of Suisun Bay, it 
divides into three channels, which are separated from one an- 
other by islands of low tule-land. In times of high flood, the 
river spreads out and covers a space fifteen or twenty miles 
wide. There is less gravel and clay but more sand in the San 
Joaquin valley than in the Sacramento valley ; the soil is drier, 
and contains more of alkaline substances, and the vegetation 
is more scanty. From Pacheco's Pass across to Firebaugh's 
Ferry, a distance of about fifty miles, there is not a tree, and 
in the autumn the country looks like a desert. At Fresno 
City the soil is nearly a pure sand, and the river at low water 
is not more than six or eight feet below the surface of the 
plain. From the bend of the San Joaquin River, southward, 
a district sixty miles wide by one hundred and fifty long, most 
of the soil is a barren sand, in many places covered with an 
alkaline efflorescence. 

The country about Kern River is very desolate, and be- 
tween that river and the Tejon Pass is a desert plain, covered 
with a scanty and useless vegetation. East of Tulare Lake, 
however, there is some rich soil, particularly in the " Four- 
Creek country," where the Cahuilla River, issuing from the 
mountains, divides into half a dozen streams, which spread out 
over a space twelve miles wide, and then unite again, filling a 



158 RESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

large tract of fertile land with abundant moisture. Tulare 
Lake is fifty-seven feet above Fresno City, and might be 
drained, and its land converted into cultivated fields, but 
whether with a profit is a question now unanswerable. This 
country is so remote from the main centres of population, that 
probably the chief occupation for residents here must be the 
breeding of sheep and cattle. 

Turning our attention now to the valleys in the Coast Moun- 
tains, we find that in all the low land between latitudes 39° 30' 
and 40° 40', the^soil is a rich and moist loam, very favorable 
for pasture and for maize, but not so well suited for small 
grain. In some valleys the season is six weeks later than it is 
across the mountain in the Sacramento valley. Russian River 
valley produces more maize than aU the remainder of the state. 
Lying between the bend of Russian River and the head of 
Petaluma valley is Santa Rosa plain, which has a soil of rich 
sandy loam, excellent for grain, and probably favorable for 
the grape. Near the mouth of Russian River is the plain of 
Bodega, the best place in the state for potatoes. The soil is a 
light, sandy loam, which is kept moist by the sea-fogs. Peta- 
luma valley is the chief dairy district of the state. The soil is 
a rich, moist loam. Sonoma valley has a soil of red gravelly 
clay near the mountains, and a warm, sandy loam near the 
creek. This is the chief grape district in the northern half of 
the state. Much of the soil is too thin to produce good crops 
of wheat. The grape is grown without irrigation, the distance 
from the ocean (about twenty-five miles) not being so great as 
entirely to cut off the fogs. The bed-rock is in some places 
trap, in others sandstone, and in others magnesian limestone. 
The latter is supposed to be particularly favorable to the 
growth of the grape. 

Next to Sonoma valley is Napa, which has a deep, clayey 
soil, the strongest in the state, and therefore the best for 
wheat. In proportion to its size, it produces more wheat than 
any other part of the state. The upper part of the valley has 
a great deal of gravel, and may be good for grapes. A larger 



AGRICULTURE. 159 

proportion of the land is cultivated in Napa valley than in any- 
other part of the state, and the cultivation is more thorough. 
Suisun valley has a rich, sandy loam, good both for barley and 
wheat. Vaca valley, a small vale near Suisun, has a very warm, 
fertile soil, and is shut in by the hills from the wind. It will 
be an excellent place for fruit, and 6very thing will ripen early 
there. 

South of the straits of Carquinez is Diablo valley, which 
has an excellent soil for wheat and barley. So also has San 
Ramon valley, but the fruit has been badly nipped by frost 
during the last three or four years. Amador valley has a soil 
of rich sand at the sides and strong loam in the centre, all of 
it moist and fertile. Livermore valley, which may be consid- 
ered as the eastern half of Amador, is a bed of gravel, of little 
value for tillage. Suiiol valley has a rich, sandy loam. The 
Alameda plain, on the eastern side of San Francisco Bay, from 
San Pablo to San Jose, is one of the richest agricultural dis- 
tricts in the state; the soil is fertile — in some places clay, in 
others sand. The soil on the western side of the bay is similar 
in character, but there is not so much of it. The lower part of 
Santa Clara valley has a fertile, black, sandless loam, changino- 
to sand and then to gravel, which last is abundant toward the 
head of the valley, where very little of the land is tilled. The 
principal fruit district in the state is in the vicinity of San Jose. 
The plain east of Monterey Bay, in Santa Cruz county, has a 
fertile soil, and a climate peculiarly favorable to beans ; excel- 
lent crops of wheat and barley are also grown here. The soil 
of Pajaro valley is one of the richest and strongest in the state, 
and its crops of w^heat and potatoes are unsurpassed. The Sa- 
linas has a rich, sandy loam in the lower part of its valley and 
near the river, but the sides and head of the vale contain much 
gravel ; the climate and soil are very dry, and only a small por- 
tion of the land is cultivated. The Cuyama, Santa Inez, and 
Santa Clara River valleys, are sandy and dry, and have but 
little tillage ; the lai>t-named valley has a soil that is in places 
almost pure sand, too thin to secure a covering of grass in a 



160 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

wet winter. Most of the level land in Los Angeles, San Ber- 
nardino, and San Diego counties, is sandy and dry, and very 
little of it is cultivated. Irrigation is necessary for fruit, vines, 
and vegetables. Wheat and barley do not produce well. Los 
Angeles is the principal grape district in the state ; the largest 
vineyards are planted in the bottom-lands of the Los Angeles, 
San Gabriel, and Santa Ana Rivers, where the soil is almost 
l)ure sand: and yet vineyards which have been in bearing 
twenty-five years, and have never been manured, are now as 
productive as ever. Allow a stream of water to run twenty- 
four hours through a field, and at the end of that time the bot- 
tom of the ditch will contain nothing but white sand, all the 
earthy particles in the soil having been dissolved and carried 
away. At the Monte the San Gabriel River sinks, and, after 
flowing two or three miles under-ground, reappears. The 
place where it sinks is very moist, covered with abundant 
vegetation, and, after Russian River valley, is the best district 
in the state for maize. 

§ 130. Agricultural Produce. — California has 1,000,000 acres 
of land in cultivation, about six-tenths of which are used for 
gi'owing grains and roots employed as food for men and do- 
mestic animals. Of these grains and roots in 1860 (the agri- 
cultural statistics for which year were more fully reported than 
those of 1861) the following amounts were grown, namely; 
5,'700,000 bushels of barley; 5,000,000 of wheat; 1,500,000 
of oats; 1,500,000 of potatoes; 500,000 of maize; 65,000 of 
beans ; 55,000 of peas ; 55,000 of sweet potatoes ; 50,000 of 
buckwheat, and 40,000 of rye, making an aggregate of 14,- 
470,000 bushels — an average of twenty-four bushels to the 
aero, and, estimating the population of the state at 400,000, 
an average of thirty-eight bushels to the person. I purposely 
omit the consideration of all articles not enumerated in the 
list, either because we have no statistics, or because the inser- 
tion would serve rather to confuse than to instruct. We grow 
very few roots of the turnip kind as food for cattle. 

Examining, then, the amounts of the crops above mentioned 



AGIilCULTURE. 161 

in their pioi^ortion to the total 1 4,470,000 bushels, we find that 
arley forms 39 per cent., wheat 34 per cent., oats 10 per cent., 
potatoes 10 per cent., maize 3 per cent., and peas, beans, sweet 
potatoes, buckwheat, and rye, about one-half of one per cent, 
each. This proportion will be found to differ greatly from 
that of any other country. Compare our state with Ohio, 
which may fairly be considered as a representative of the free 
agricultural states of the Union. Ohio has 10,000,000 acres 
under cultivation — that is, ten times as much as California — 
and, according to the census of 1850, in the previous year pro- 
duced 92,644,000 bushels of the above-mentioned articles, six 
times as much as California. The population of Ohio was then 
1,980,000; so the yield was an average of forty-six bushels to 
the person. Coming down to particulars, we find that in 1849 
Ohio i)roduccd 59,000,000 bushels (or 03 per cent.) of maize; 
14,000,000 bushels (15 percent.) of wheat; 13,000,000 bushels 
(14 per cent.) of oats; 5,000,000 bushels (5 per cent.) of pota- 
toes; 638,000 bushels (one-half of 1 per cent.) of buckwheat; 
425,000 bushels of rye, 354,000 of barley, 187,000 of sweet 
potatoes, and 60,000 of peas and' beans. Comparing the pro- 
portion of the several items to the total of the crops, we find 
that California grows eighty times as much barley as Ohio, 
twice as much wheat and potatoes, twelve times as much peas 
and beans, and only one-twentieth as much maize. The pro- 
l)ortion of oats, buckwheat, and rye, is about the same in the 
two states. 

§ 131. Rotation of Crops. — Rotation of crops, as the phrase 
is understood in the Atlantic states and Europe, receives very 
little attention from the farmers of California, and indeed is im- 
possible on the greater part of the land, because its dryness 
will not permit the growth of roots or common grasses. The 
soil is too dry for corn, potatoes, turnips, clover, and timothy 
or herd's grass. Peas and beans yield well in Only a few lo- 
calities. Alfalfa or lucerne will thrive, but it needs several 
years to get deep root and make a thick sod. Horses and 
cattle find food in the open plains and hills throughout the 



162 RF. SOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

year ; and the wild oat is cut for hay. The farmers generally 
are anxious to make as much money as possible, and as soon 
as possible, without regard to the future value of the land. 
Some of them are not permanent residents of the state, and 
intend to leave it so soon as they can get a certain number of 
dollars together ; others are farming land the title of which is 
in dispute, and, as they feel uncertain about its ownership, they 
are indiiferent to its exhaustion. Many of them come from 
the Western states, where the land had not, previous to their 
migration, become poor ; and as rotation of crops had never 
been a necessity within their experience, they have never 
adopted it. 

The soil of California is not exhausted ; much of it will con- 
tinue tc produce large crops of small grain without interrup- 
tion and without manure for a score of years to come. Pre- 
vious to 1853, the valleys were filled with cattle, and their 
manure had contributed for a long time — along the southern 
coast for half a century — to enrich the soil. 

The prominence of barley in Californian farming is owing to 
the facts that it is an almost certain crop, produces largely, 
can be grown on all the cultivated land in the state, yields 
good volunteer crops, is excellent food for horses, can be kept 
for years, and always commands a market abroad. 

§ 132. Ploughing. — Ploughing commences with the first 
heavy rain. The heat and drought of summer and autumn 
bake the ground, and render it too hard for the plough ; so 
the farmer must wait for the rains. The sooner they come, 
after the first of October, the more convenient for him, and the 
more work he can do. The rain must be sufiicient to wet the 
earth down six or eight inches deep ; a little shower will not 
sufiice. The soils of loam and clay are so hard, that no ordi- 
nary plough is strong enough to break through them ; and 
ploughing would do no good, because the earth would be in 
large clods, which would furnish little nutriment to the grain. 

§ 133. AdvaoifMges., etc. — ^The Californian farmer has a great 
advantage over those of the Northern Atlantic states, in the 



AGKICULTURE. 163 

mildness of the winters. Here we have no snow or ice, and 
no time is lost because of cold. Neither are our frosts so se- 
vere as those east of the Mississippi. But, on the other hand, 
farmers in other parts of the Union have a great advantage 

' over us in the security of title and the equal division of the 

f land among the tillers of the soil. Here most of the titles are 
in dispute, and much of the land held under undoubted title is 
owned in large tracts by a few persons. 

Barns are not used hi California. The grain, after cutting, 
is put into a stack, or thrown into a heap, until a threshing- 
machine can be obtained, and the grain is then j^laced in the 
granary. Between harvest and threshing-time there is little 
danger of rain ; and to such slight danger as there is, every 

. farmer exposes himself. Barns in other countries are necessi- 
ties ; here they could not be used if we had them. Not unfre- 
quently the grain, wdthin two weeks after cutting, is stored in 
a warehouse in San Francisco ; often it is left lying in sacks 
upon the field until it is sold — a period of months. In August 
and September, the square piles of white sacks in the stubble- 
fields are a common and prominent feature of the Californian 

i landscape in the farming districts. 

The straw, elsewhere saved, is usually burned here ; and. a 
most improvident practice it is. Not more than a dozen or 
two of farmers save the straw. The others burn it after the 
first rain, wiien there is.no danger of the fire spreading; and 
the columns of smoke rising all over the country make a sin- 
gular appearance. 

Farms in California are usually larger than those in the East- 
ern states, and many of the ranches — containing from ten to 
fifty thousand acres — are large enough for principalities. 

As our valleys are not covered with sod, so the first plough- 
ing is nearly as easy as any of the subsequent ones ; and the 
severe task of breaking prairie, so common in the states of the 
upi)er Mississippi valley, is unknown here. 

§ 134. Fences. — In the matter of fences, the Californian 
farmer is at a disadvantage, as compared with his Eastern 



164 EESOFRCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

brethren. TlirongLout the United States, the system has pre- 
vailed of permitting horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs, to run at 
large, with no right of indemnity for any damage which they 
might do in cultivated fields, unless surrounded by a " lawful 
fence." This may be a good system for the pioneer, who tills 
little land, and wislies his horses and cattle to have a wide 
range ; and it was well suited to the pastoral hfe of the Span- 
ish Californians previous to the American conquest; but it is 
of doubtful policy as applied to the present condition of aifairs, 
at least in the principal agricultural valleys, where all the land 
is under plough. For instance, in the Alameda plain, along 
the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay — a district fifty miles 
long by three wide, and containing one hundred and fifty 
square miles, of which one hundred and twenty-five are culti- 
vated — there are five hundred farms, and probably two hun- 
dred miles of fencing, made at a cost of one hundred thousand 
dollars. This is a severe tax upon firming, and it is levied 
chiefly to protect the grain and fruit-trees from the depreda- 
tions of horses and cattle belono-ino- to neio^hbors and strano-ers. 
A farmer would rarely go to the expense of fencing his own 
cattle and horses out : it would be much cheaper for him to 
keep them in a yard or stable. 

The legislature has prescribed what kind of a fence is "law- 
ful ;" and if any domesticated animal breaks through a lawful 
fence, its owner is liable for the damage done in the enclosure ; 
and if the trespass be repeated by any neglect of the owner of 
the animal, he is liable for double damages. The farmer mny 
take up the trespassing animal as an estray; but if he injure 
or kill it, he becomes responsible to the owner. The require- 
ments of lawful fence are not the same in all parts of the state. 
In the counties of Butte, Amador, Tuolumne, Calaveras, San 
Diego, Nevada, San Bernardino, Colusi, Placer, Santa Barbara, 
Yuba, Shasta, Klamath, Trinity, and Siskiyou, " every enclo- 
sure" (I quote the words of the statute) "shall be deemed a 
lawful fence which is four and a half feet high, if made of 
stone ; and if made of rails, five and a half feet high ; if made 



AGKICIJ LTURE. 1G5 

upon tlie eiiibaiikment of n ditch, three feet high from the bot- 
tom of the ditch, the fence shall be two feet high ; said fence 
to be substantial and reasonably strong, and made so strong 
that stock cannot get their heads through it, and if made to 
turn small stock [sheep, goats, hogs, &c.], sufliciently tight to 
keep such stock out. A hedge-fence shall be considered a law- 
ful fence, if live feet high and sufficiently close to turn stock." 
In other counties the requirements are so complex and lengthy, 
that I shall not try to describe them all. In Marin, Alameda, 
Sacramento, San Francisco, Stanislaus, Yuba, Santa Clara, Yolo, 
I San Mateo, Santa Cruz, San Joaquin, San Bernardino, Sutter, 
Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Los Angeles, Tuolunme, Te- 
hama, Colusi, Butte, ISTapa, Humboldt, Merced, Trinity, Mon- 
terey, and Solano, hogs are not permitted to run at large ; or 
at least any person finding them trespassing upon his " prem- 
ises" — which means land, whether enclosed or not — may take 
them up, keep them at the expense of the owner, and treat 
them as estrays. 

Board-fences are the best. They are usually made five feet 
high, with redwood posts set eight feet apart, and five spruce 
boards six inches wide and an inch thick in each panel. Such 
a fence, well made, costs five hundred dollars a mile. Yt^orm 
and post-and-rail fences are common near the redwood districts 
— for instance, in Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, Marin, Napa, 
San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties. The farmers 
generally make their owm fences of these kinds, and the cost is 
of time, not money. When the work is done by the job, it 
costs from three to six hundred dollars a mile, according to 
the distance and position of the timber, and the quality of the 
wood ; the price increasing in proportion as the trees are far 
off, or situated in deep canons, and as the wood is tough and 
cross-grained. Ditches are common in the tule-lands. Hedges 
are made with willows and cactus in Los Angeles, Sun Ber- 
nardino, and San Diego counties. There are a fe\v hedges of 
osage-orange and ' gorse, for ornament, in the counties about 
San Francisco Bay, but few or none for use. The osage-orange 



166 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

grows tbriflily about San Jose, where it can be irrigated, but 
hedges are Hable to much damage from gophers, which are 
fond of the roots ; and if a hole is made, it is difficult to get 
young plants to grow, the older ones choking them down. 
After the thh'd year irrigation is not necessary. In dry land, 
where water is not abundant for irrigation, the hedges do not 
grow up regularly. In the general opinion of farmers, osage- 
orange hedges will not pay, even in the land best suited for 
them : the labor of j^lanting the seed, transplanting the sproutts, 
irrigating, replanting, and trimming for three years, costs more 
than a board-fence, which is useful from the first day, and is in 
no danger from gophers, whereas the hedge is useless for three 
years, and is in constant danger. 

The willow-hedo;e is the most common fence in Los Ang^eles 
county, and is a prominent feature of the scenery near the 
towns. The fence is made with cuttings, the larger the better ; 
the largest are three inches in diameter and eight feet long. 
These are planted perpendicularly three feet deep and nine 
inches apart, and then irrigated freely, when nearly all will 
grow. If larger cuttings cannot be had, small ones, half an 
inch thick and two feet long, are taken, and only an inch or 
two is left above-ground. K the cuttings are of the largest 
size, the fence is good in the second year ; if small, four or 
five years may be required to make a tight fence. Twigs and 
poles are woven horizontally through the hedge. In the course 
of eight or ten years, the willows grow to be trees, with trunks 
five or six inches in diameter, and with dense tops from fifteen 
to thirty feet high. They thus not only shut out trespassing 
animals, but furnish a large amount of fircAVOod, an item of no 
small importance in the woodless plains of the south, and throw 
a pleasant shade over the roads which they line. The willow- 
fence requires frequent irrigation, for its growth will usually 
depend upon the amount of water supplied to it. 

The cactus was used extensively for fences at the old mis- 
sions, and some fields are still enclosed with it. The plant is 
merely thrown upon the ground, where it takes root, no matter 



A G K I CULTURE. 107 

how dry or barren the soil, and grows up in a dense mass of 
thick leaves, six feet high and from five to ten feet wide. It 
is covered with tliorns, and is feared by all large animals, but 
spermopliiles and gophers are fond of burrowing under it, 
for it protects them against their enemies, and its leaves fur- 
nish them with food. 

Several machines have been made to cut ditches through the 
tules, and throw the dirt up as an embankment on one side, 
but none of them have been very successful ; and the sj^ade is 
still considered the best instrument for making fences in the 
tules. 

§ 135. Darley. — The soil and climate of California appear to 
be particularly favorable to the growth of barley, which forms 
a larger proportion of agricultural produce here than in any 
other part of the world. It is a hardy grain, preferring a sandy 
or gravelly soil, and dry weather. Three kinds are grown in 
CaUfornia — the common, the Nepaul, and the chevalier. Only 
a few acres of the Nepaul have been raised, as an experiment ; 
the chevalier is cultivated to a small extent, and chiefly for 
pearl-barley, of which a little is made in the country. The 
yield of the chevalier is from ten to twenty per cent, less than 
that of the common barley. 

The sowing commences with the first heavy rain, which 
comes in some years as early as the first of November, and 
continues to the first of April. The ground used for small 
grain bakes hard during the heat and drought of summer and 
autumn ; and ploughing is not possible until the rain comes, 
and rain enough to wet the earth thoroughly, at least six 
inches deep. The ploughs are then set to work immediately, 
running from four to eight inches deep. One ploughing is 
usually considered sufficient. The grain is sown according to 
convenience, soon after the i)loughing, or after the lapse of 
weeks, and is immediately harrowed in. The amount of seed 
sown to the acre varies from a bushel and a half to two bush- 
els. The sowing is usually done broadcast, but some farmers 
prefer the drill. Early sowing gives the best yield, if the winter 



168 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

rains be light ; but when the rains are abundant, the late-sown 
fields are the best. There is always danger that small grain 
in California, if sown early, w^ill get more rain than it wants. 
The same barley is sown early and late ; our farmers do not 
know any thing of " winter barley" as distinct from " spring 
barley" — a division familiar in the Atlantic states. 

The harvest precedes that of wheat ; commencing in the Sac- 
ramento Basin early in June, and in the coast valleys late in 
the same month. The grain is all cut with reaping-machines, 
and is never housed, but is threshed on the field, with or with- 
out stacking. Sometimes it is bound ; frequently it is gath- 
ered in a tight wagon-bed, and hauled into a pile in the centre 
of the field, where it remains until the threshing-machine can 
come. The rarity of rain from June to October renders this 
course pretty safe ; though it has happened, on one or two 
occasions during the last ten yen,rs, that grain in the field has 
been injured by September rains. The same land is cultivated 
year after year in barley ; and there has been very little, if 
any, decrease in crops during the last ten years. 

When men are hired to plough and sow by the job, they 
charge three dollars per acre ; reaping and binding cost two 
dollars per acre ; threshing costs from one-twelfth to one-tenth 
of the grain, and sacks holding one hundred pounds cost fif- 
teen cents apiece. The common yield is from thirty to thirty- 
five bushels per acre, and fifty per cent, more than the average 
barley-crop in the Eastern states. In 1856, according to the 
reports of the county assessors, the average yield of barley in 
Alameda county was 45 bushels ; in Sonoma, 39 ; in Marin, 39 ; 
in Sacramento, 26 ; in Amador, 34 ; in Santa Cruz, 30. In 1 857, 
according to the same authorities, the average yield in Alame- 
da was 40 bushels ; Sonoma, 25 ; Marin, 39 ; Sacramento, 24 ; 
Amador, 25 ; and Santa Cruz, 30. In 1859, Alameda reported 
an average of 29 bushels; Contra Costa, 30; Napa, 25; San 
Joaquin, 1*7; Sonoma, 40; Santa Cruz, 30; Yolo, 10; Sacra- 
mento, 25. In 1860, the assessors' reports show an average 
of 30 bushels for Alameda, 40 for Butte, 40 for Amador, 35 



AGRICULTURE. 169 

for Calaveras, 40 for Fresno, 45 for Marin, 40 for Los Angeles, 
20 for Mendocino, 31 for Merced, 33 for Monterey, 28 for Ne- 
vada, 11 for Sacramento, 20 for San Joaquin, 21 for Santa Clara, 
30 for Santa Cruz, 16 for Shasta, 60 for Sonoma, 60 for Yolo, 
and 40 for Yuba. 

Many of these figures are merely guessed at by the asses- 
sors, who, however, are compelled to travel all over their re- 
spective counties, and converse with all the farmers. Their 
conjectures, therefore, are worthy of respectful consideration. 
But an average of sixty bushels per acre for a whole county 
looks almost too large to be believed unless supported by some 
special authentication more than we have. Nevertheless, crops 
of sixty bushels to the acre are not rare. In 1853, a field of 
one hundred acres in the valley of the Pajaro produced ninety 
thousand bushels, and one acre of it yielded one hundred and 
forty-nine bushels ! It was grown by J. B. Hill ; was men- 
tioned as undoubtedly true by the assessor of Monterey coun- 
ty in his ofiicial report ; and a prize was granted by an agri- 
cultural society for the crop. The field which took the prize 
of the State Agricultural Society, in 1859, yielded sixty-seven 
bushels to the acre. The field was a large one, and ten acres 
(a fair sample of the whole) were measured. The crop which 
takes that prize is not necessarily the largest crop in the state, 
but only the largest among those ofl:ered for competition. No 
doubt, many larger crops were harvested in 1857. In 1859, 
ninety bushels of Nepaul barley were grown to the acre by 
Mr. Burrell, in Santa Cruz county, but in a small field. 

There is probably no part of the world whore volunteer 
crops do so well as in California, and barley seems to produce 
better on the volunteer system than any other grain. Volun- 
teer crops are those grown from the seed which falls out in 
harvesting ; there is, therefore, no sowing or planting. Some- 
times the land is ploughed and harrowed ; sometimes it is left 
untouched. Large amounts of volunteer barley are grown 
every year, and sometimes the yield is excellent. One case is 
reported of a field in Yolo county which produced five succes- 



170 EESOUECES OF CALIFOENIA. 

sive volunteer crops of barley, the last and least crop amount- 
ing to tliirty bushels per acre ! 

In 1860, the largest barley counties of the state were — ^Yolo, 
which produced 1,541,640 bushels; San Joaquin, 912,500; Al- 
ameda, 630,750 ; Contra Costa, 350,000 ; Sacramento, 300,683 ; 
Santa Clara, 300,000; Yuba, 243,761 ; Butte, 241, 340; Santa 
Cruz, 212,000; and Kevada, 207,000. 

§ 136. JVheat. — Many kinds of wheat are cultivated here, 
of which the main are Chile, Australian, Odessa or Old Cali- 
fornian, Red Mediterranean, Sonora, Oregon White, Bald, and 
Egyptian. The general diyision of wheat into " winter" and 
''sprhig," common in the wheat-growing districts of the East- 
ern states, is unknown. All our wheat may be set down as 
spring wheat. When winter wheat is brought here from 
abroad, it does not thrive the first year ; but in the second 
year, having been converted into spring wheat and acclimated, 
it yields well. The Chile gives general satisfaction, and is 
more cultivated than any of the others. The Australian has a 
tendency to smut, but this is corrected with blue vitriol. 
These two form three-fourths of the crop ; the other fourth is 
made up chiefly of Mediterranean and Sonora. The Egyptian 
yields largely, but has little gluten, and is fit only for coarse 
bread or maccaroni. All the acclimated wheat of the state is 
white ; though imported red seed shows its color the first year, 
but in the second year it loses its redness. 

The qualities in which the best wheat excels are glutinous- 
ness or strength, flintiness or dryness, whiteness of color, thin- 
ness of skin, cleanness, plumpness and size of berry, and 
weight. 

The value of wheat depends, to a great extent, upon its 
strength. In this point lies, its chief difference from potatoes, 
which always do and must occupy an inferior place upon our 
tables. Much gluten in flour renders the dough tough, makes 
handsome bread, with the air-bubbles in it small and uniform 
in size, and retains moisture, so that the bread will weigh 
much in proportion to the flour used ; while if the amoimt of 



AGEICULTUIiE. 1*71 

gluten be small, the grain of the bread will be uneven, the 
dough will give way in places, allowing the formation of large 
cavities, and less moisture will be rctaiued. The wheat of dif- 
ferent countries varies greatly in gluthiousness, and California 
occupies a very high position. Our wheat is far more glutin- 
ous than that of any other North American state, and, although 
I have no precise information, I am inclined to believe that we 
have a like superiority in this respect over European countries. 
The consequence is, that our wheat is now in demand in New 
York to mix wdth their w^eak grain, so that a tolerably strong 
flour may be made. 

But the wheat of California is not all equally glutinous ; some 
of it is much weaker than other. The most glutinous is that 
grown in Santa Clara valley ; the southeastern part of San Ma- 
teo county ; the southern part of Alameda county ; and Diablo, 
San Ramon, and Suisun valleys. That of Santa Rosa, Pajaro, 
Salinas, Petaluma, and Sonoma, is considerably hiferior in glu- 
tinousness, but is better than that of the Sacramento, San Joa- 
quin, and Napa valleys, the vicinity of Half-Moon Bay, and 
Alameda opposite the Golden Gate. The strongly glutinous 
is about one-third of the crop of the state. It is not known 
why the wheat in one district is more glutinous than in another. 
None of that grown very near the coast is strongly glutinous ; 
so the moisture seems to be injurious. Napa wheat is inferior 
in glutinousness to that of Sonoma, though farther from the 
coast, and more free from ocean-fogs, but the soil of Napa is 
much moistef. 

In Oregon and Washington, where the climate is very moist, 
the wheat is as weak as at Half-Moon Bay. In the Mississippi 
valley, where a great amount of rain falls, the w^heat is also 
weak ; and just in the Gallego and Haxall district, if report be 
true, the rain-fall is less than in any wiieat-district east of the 
Alleghanies. And yet in the Sacramento and San Joaquin 
valleys, Avhich are among the driest parts of California, the 
Avheat is very weak. This is accounted for — by those adopting 
the theory that glutinousness depends entirely upon the cli- 



172 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

mate — by saying that those valleys are visited, while the grain 
is in the milk, by weather so hot that the berries are burned, 
and are prevented from attaining their perfect development. 
It would be well if this matter were thoroughly studied, for it 
is one of much importance to the merchant and ship-owner, as 
well as to the farmer, the baker, and the consumer. 

The wheat grown on the clayey loam about Alviso is not 
so glutinous as that produced on the sandy loam about Santa 
Clara and the gravelly clay in other parts of the valley. It is 
worthy of remark that the soil of the Putah and Cache valleys, 
tributary to the Sacramento, diifers in no noteworthy particu- 
lar from the soil in Suisun, Diablo, and San Ramon, which lat- 
ter yield strong while the former produce weak wheat. It has 
been observed that during the last three years the wheat of a 
large farm in San Mateo county, said to be the best cultivated A| 
in the state, has been gradually decreasing in strength. It is 
not known whether the change is caused by a difference in the 
seasons, or by a progressive exhaustion of the soil. So far as . 
observations have been made in California, the amount of glu- 
ten is not affected by early or late sowing, thorough or careless 
cultivation, largeness or smaUness of the yield, or cleanness of 
the crop. 

In flintiness or dryness, Californian wheat has no superior, 
and no equal save in the Chilean. It may be stored in bulk, 
or it may be thrown mto tlie hold of a ship within two weeks 
after harvest, and then sent twice through the tropics, and 
there is no danger that it will heat or sweat. The same may 
be said of its iiour. No wheat or flour from the Atlantic 
states is near it in this respect. In August, 1860, J. B. Fris- 
bie loaded a vessel at Vallejo with wheat taken from the har- 
vest-field — it had never be^n inside of a house, but had lain 
upon the ground for several weeks after threshing — and that 
cargo of wheat, when discharged at Liverpool, was as sweet 
and clear from mustiness, mi^uld, sprouting, or fermentation, 
as it was when harvested. The Atlantic flour, when kiln-dried, 
and pressed, does not keep like ours as it comes from the mill, 



AGRICULTURE. 173 

after having gone there fresh from the threshing-machine and 
the harvest-field. 

The flour made from flinty wheat is peculiarly suited for 
shipment to tropical countries, where the moister flour soon 
fei-ments and sours. These are excellent markets, for they are 
certain, they pay well, and there is little competition. Most 
of the flour now exported to the West Indian islands and the 
Malaysian archipelago is of the Gallego and Haxall brands, 
which, because of their dryness and strength, are worth from 
twenty to fifty per cent, more in the market than other flour. 
California may not be able to supply the West Indian islands, 
but she certainly has peculiar advantages for supplying the 
tropical islands and shores of the Pacific. The flintine^s of 
our wheat is undoubtedly owing to the dryness of the climate, 
and it is about the same in all the wheat-growing districts of 
the state. There is no noteworthy difierence in this respect 
between that of the Sacramento valley and that grown on the 
immediate coast. It is all so dry as to keep well in any cli- 
mate. Millers in New York and Liverpool make some objec- 
tion to our wheat, that it is too hard for their millstones ; but 
this is their misfortune, not our fault. The difiiculty is reme- 
died by moistening the wheat before grinding. 

Most of the wheat of this state is white, but it is not equal 
in whiteness to that of the Genesee valley, Oregon, Washing- 
ton, and some other districts of the United States ; yet is supe- 
rior to the wheat of England and of most European countries. 
The fogs give a dark color to the wheat grown at Half-Moon 
Bay, in the Pajaro and Petaluma valleys, and on the Santa 
Rosa plain ; but in the other districts a uniform whiteness pre- 
vails. 

Our wheat generally has a thin skin, and does not make 
much bran ; but in the same districts where the skin is dark- 
ened by the fogs, there also it is thick. 

Most of the Californian wheat is not well cleaned. It is 
sent to the market containing oats, barley, chess, alfalfa-seed, 
and dirt ; and when shipped to New York, must usually be 



174 'eesources of California. 

cleaned there before it can be ground. Our flirmers, however, 
are gradually becoming more careful in cleaning their wheat. 

In the plumpness and size of the berry, our wheat compares 
weU with that of Europe and the Atlantic states, but can per- 
haps claim no decided superiority. Comparing the different 
districts of the state with one another on this point, Suscol 
probably deserves the first place, and Napa the next. In the 
Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, the wheat is often shriv- 
elled by hot winds, which blow for three or four successive days 
while the grain is in the milk, and seem to blast it. Great 
difterenccs are observed, however, according to the season. 

The weight of Californian wheat is usually sixty pounds per 
bushel, seldom less — frequently sixty-two, and sometimes sixty- 
five ; thus entithng our state to a high position in that respect. 

The average yield of Californian \vlieat-fields is from twenty 
to twenty-five bushels per acre, which is about thirty-three per 
cent, more than in the states on the Atlantic slope. An old 
Spanish book of records, of the mission of San Diego, states 
that, in 1778, twelve fanegas (a fanega is about two bushels) 
of wheat were sown, and three hundred and fifty fanegas were 
harvested — an increase of thirty-fold. The next year, sixteen 
fanegas were sown, and the yield was one hundred and sixty 
fanegas. In 1780, twenty-four fanegas were sown, and eight 
hundred harvested — an increase of thirty-three-fold, San Die- 
go is far inferior for wheat-growing to the coast valleys about 
San Francisco Bay; and previous to the coming of the Ameri- 
cans the ground was not ploughed, but only scratched, and the 
limb of a tree was used for a harrow. 

Culton, in liis " Three Years in California" (page 442), states 
that while the priests still had sole conti'ol of the missions and 
mission-lands, previous to 1833, the mayorclonio or steward of 
the Mission of San Jose harvested 4,300 fanegas of wlieat from 
40 fanegas of seed ; and at the next harvest he had a volunteer 
crop of 2,600 fanegas on the same land. The first year, ac- 
cording to this report, the increase was 107-fold, and the next 
year 65-fold. At the Mission of Soledad, according to the 



AGKICULTURE. 173 

same author (page 445), 1,700 fanegas were harvested from 19 
sown — an mcrease of 89-fold; and in 1827, an increase of 58- 
fold was obtained at San Luis Obispo by scratcliing the seed 
in with a harrow upon land unploughetl, and not even touched 
by the thing called a plough in those days. Not less than half 
a iiinega is sown to the acre ; so we may suppose that the tig- 
ures which indicate the increase of the crop over the seed also 
indicate the number of bushels to the acre. Now, a tenfold 
increase is considered a fair crop. Crops of 80 bushels to the 
acre have often been grown in Cahfornia. Mr. Hill harvested 
82| bushels from an acre in Pajaro valley in 1853, and obtahied 
G60 bushels from 10 acres. In 1851, Mr. P. M. Scooffy har- 
vested 88 bushels ; and Mr. N. Carriger 80 bushels in Sonoma 
valley. In 1853, J. M. Horner harvested 1,000 acres of wheat 
near the Mission of San Jose, with an average of 40 bushels, 
some of it producing 60 bushels to the acre. The next year 
he hud 2,000 acres, with an average of 40 bushels. Large 
fields of wheat in Eel River valley, according to the report of 
the assessor of Humboldt county, averaged 73 bushels to the 
acre in 1857. 

In the best wheat districts of the Mississippi valley, the 
f irniers generally believe, or did believe a few years ago, that 
not more than 45 bushels of wheat ever had been or ever could 
be grown upon an acre ; and when, on a visit from California, 
I spoke to experienced and intelligent men among them of GO 
bushels, I was told that not more than 50 bushels could possi- 
bly stand upon the ground. In 1856, the average wheat-crop 
per acre in California, according to the county assessors' reports, 
was — 25 bushels in Amador and Santa Cruz counties, 30 in 
Marin, 28 in San Francisco, 19 in Sacramento, 20 in San Joa- 
quin, 15 in Sonoma, and 28 in Tuolumne. The next year it 
was 35 in Amador, 40 in Del Norte, 20 in Alameda, Santa 
Cruz, San Joaquin, and Tuoluume, 19 in Sacramento, and 30 
in Sonoma. In 1859, the average was 30 bushels in San Ma- 
teo, Santa Cruz, Siskiyou, Sonoma, and Yuba, 32 in Butte, 25 
m Napa and Santa Clara, 20 in Contra Costa and Solano, 15 ia 




176 KESOTJECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

San Joaquin, and 14 in Sacramento. In 1860, the reported 
average was 45 bushels in San Luis Obispo, 35 in Yolo and^Bj 
Calaveras, 34 in Placer, 30 in Sonoma, Stanislaus, Yuba, and 
Amador, 27 in Santa Cruz, 26 in Fresno and Tulare, 25 in Te- 
hama, Butte, Humboldt, and Napa, 24 in Nevada, 20 in San 
Diego, Santa Clara, and Shasta, 18 in San Joaquin, and 15 in 
Sacramento. 

In 1855, the worst year for wheat we have ever known 'm » 
California, when both smut and rust raged from Siskiyou to 
San Diego, the average crop of the state was put down as 15 
bushels per acre. Of 12,233 acres sown in Sonoma county, 
only 3,500 were harvested; and of 2,490 sown in Marin, all 
but 462 went untouched by the reaper. 

In Ohio, the average wheat-crop is about sixteen buslc!s p -r 
acre; and in England, with aU their manuring and 'careful 
j)loughing, twenty-one bushels. In California, no manure is 
applied ; the soil is ploughed but once in most fields, and there 
is httle rest for^ the land by rotation of crops.- 

It is a singular fact that where wheat is sown under oak- 
trees, the stalks are usually thicker and taller, and the grain 
more abundant, than in other places. This may be owing to 
the facts that the trees protect the ground under them from 
the frost, and also retain the moisture; and that while the 
country was in the hands of the Mexicans, the cattle had pos- 
session of the valleys, and, collecting under the trees in the 
summer-time, their manure enriched the soil there. The roots 
of the oak-trees in the valleys do not run along the surface of 
the ground, but go deeper for moisture, and thus the plough 
can run up to the trunk, and put all the land in order for grain. 

The princii^al wheat-growing counties in the state are San 
Joaquin, which in 1860 produced 895,000 bushels ; Napa, with 
652,000 ; Yolo, with 459,000 ; Alameda, with 440,000 ; Santa 
Clara, with 400,000 ; Yuba, with 223,000 ; Santa Cruz, Avith 
243,000 ; Sonoma, with 275,000 ; and Contra Costa, with 
450,000. 

It is almost impossible that there should ever be an entire 



AGRICULTURE. 177 

failure of the wheat-crop in California, unless the rain should 
completely fail. After wet winters, the dry lands and hills 
will produce the best crops ; in seasons of light rain-fall, the 
low, moist lands will take the lead. There are so many soils 
and so many climates in the state, that some must be favor- 
able. There is no danger that the grain, when nearly ripe, 
will be beaten down by the hail, as has happened in Europe 
and the Atlantic states. On only one occasion, within my 
knowledge or reading, has it happened that the grain has been 
" lodged" or beaten down by rain, and that was at Suscol and 
Napa in 1860; and the damage then was slight, for most of 
the grain recovered, and all of it, if I remember rightly, was 
reaped by machines. 

Wheat is sown from the first of IsTovember to the first of 
April. The most certain crops are those sown early ; the 
largest are those sown late in favorable years. If the amount 
of rain is small or moderate, the earliest-sown fields are the 
best ; but if the sp.ring be wet, the early-sown fields are sur- 
passed by those sown about the first of February. Wheat is 
usually sown after barley and oats. The best farmers prefer 
to sow between New-Year's l)ay and the middle of February. 
Most of the sowing is done broadcast, but drills are used to a 
considerable extent. One ploughing is, by most farmers, con- 
sidered sufficient. The harvest comes from the middle of June 
to the middle of July. The expenses of sowing, harvesting, 
and threshing, are the same as with barley. 

§ 137. Oats. — The principal varieties of oats cultivated in 
California are the Australian, English, Bare, Feather, and Tuck- 
er. The Bare and Tucker oats thrive best on a heavy soil ; 
the Feather oat prefers a sandy loam. The indigenous wild 
oat of California is never cultivated ; for, although it produces 
large and tall stalks, they do not contain so much weight or 
bear so much grain as the domesticated oat. The average 
crop is from 30 to 40 bushels to the acre, 30 per cent, greater 
than in the Atlantic states. The Crescent City Herald re- 
ported in October, 1857, that Rigg and Reid, in Del Norte 
9 



178 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOKJJIA. 

county, had grown 125 bushels of oats to the acre; and that 
John A. Brown, of Crescent City, had a crop of 157^ bushels 
to the acre. According to the assessors' returns, the average 
crop per acre of 18G0 was — 50 bushels in Alameda and Yuba 
comities; 40 in Butte, Placer, and Santa Cruz; 35 in Napa; 
30 in Amador, Sacramento, and Yolo ; 28 in Humboldt ; 25 in 
San Joaquin ; and 20 in Klamath, Santa Clara, and Sonoma. 
The largest oat-orrowins: counties in the state are — Alame- 
da, which in 1861 produced 449,000 bushels; Contra Costa, 
300,000; Santa Cruz, 262,000 ; Sonoma, 187,000, and Marin, 
174,000. 

§ 138. Maize. — Maize can be grown to advantage in only a 
few places in California. Most of the land is too dry and the 
summer nights too cool for it. The principal maize districts 
are in the valleys of the upper coast, from Russian River to 
Humboldt Bay; in Yuba county, upon the moist bottom-lands 
of the Sacramento River ; and at the Monte, in Los Angeles 
county, where the San Gabriel River sinks and fills the plain 
with moisture. Sixty bushels to the acre is considered a large 
crop; the average is not over thirty. Corn can be grown 
wherever the land can be irrigated,- but this is a troublesome 
and expensive mode of cultivation, though it is not uncommon 
in gardens near San Fransisco. Green maize, grown in the 
open air, is in the market from June to September. 

The cultivation of rye and buckwheat differs Uttle from that 
of the same grains in the Eastern states. 

§ 139. Potatoes. — The potato thrives wonderfully in a few 
places in California, particularly at Bodega, Tomales, and in 
Pajaro valley. The average produce per acre is perhaps not 
larger than in Ohio or England, but the tubers are larger in 
size and smoother in skin. The average size of those sold in 
the San Francisco market is probably fifty if not one hundred 
per cent larger than of those sold in New York. Potatoes 
six inches long by three inches through, and weighing a pound^ 
are not uncommon ; many have been seen to weigh four 
pounds ; and one grew to weigh seven pounds. I saw a clus- 



AGRICULTURE. IV-O 

ter that had grown together, eight inches long, six wide, and 
four deep, that weighed eight pounds. 

The soil at Bodega and Toinales, the chief potato district, 
is a light, sandy loam, and the mists fi'om the ocean supply the 
abundant moisture which th'e plant loves. In 1860, S^onoma 
produced 314,000 bushels, Sacramento 263,000, Marin 240,000, 
and Alameda 73,000. The potato district of Sacramento coun- 
ty is on the banks of the sloughs of the Sacramento River, near 
its junction with the San Joaquin. The soil is a very light, 
warm, rich loam, and the vegetables gtown there are among 
the earliest in the market. According to the assessors' reports, 
the average crop of Sacramento county in 1860 was 390 bushels 
per acre; of Sonoma county, 100 bushels; and of Marin, 80. 
The Californian potatoes are mealy, sound, and palatable. The 
potato-disease has never made its appearance in this state. 

The immediate coast, at least north of Point Conception, is 
too cold for the sweet potato, which thrives, however, in the 
Sacramento valley, especially in the low land about the head 
of Suisun Bay. The true sweet potato has^ growjsi here to 
weigh fifteen pounds — much larger than any I have ever seen 
in the states east of the Mississippi. The flavor is not equal 
to those grown at the East. They lack the mealiness and deli- 
cate taste which make the Eastern SAveet potato so palatable in 
its season. 

§ 140. Hay.— In 1860, California had 150,000 head of horses 
and 1,100,000 head of neat cattle, and cut 200,000 tons of hay, 
or one ton for six head of large stock. In 1849, Ohio had 
463,000 horses and 1,350,000 cattle, and cut 1,500,000 tons of 
hay, or five tons for six head of stock. Ohio, therefore, cuts 
five times as much hay, in proportion to the number of her 
horses and cattle, as does California ; and if we suppose that 
she exports one-fourth of her hay to the slave states, she still 
makes three times as much in proportion for home use as this 
state. The cause is, that there every horse and cow must have 
hay throughodt' the winter, and many of them througli the 
summer; while here very few cattle are fed with hay at any 



180 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

season of the year, and horses not employed are usuall j turned 
out into the open pkiin. The hay of Ohio is cut in cultivated 
fields, from tame grasses ; that of California is made of wild 
oats and indigenous grasses, which are grown in the open 
valleys. 

The haying season comes about the first of May. The old 
adage, that " you must make hay wliile the sun shines," does 
not apply in California, for here the sun shines all the time, 
and the haymaker has ordinarily no fear of rain. It happened, 
however, in 1860, that a considerable amount of hay was spoilt 
by the late rains in June. The whole process of haymaking in 
California is managed by machinery. It is cut with the ma- 
chine-mower, raked together with horse-rakes into cocks or 
vnndrows, and finally the cocks are hauled together on hay- 
sleds which load themselves by slipping under the cocks. The 
hay is not turned by hand, nor is the field raked by hand. 
The hand must be used, however, when wagons are to be 
loaded or stacks built. Hay is usually cured in the cock or 
windrow. It is not necessary to turn it by hand, as is cus- 
tomary in the Eastern states. One turning and one day in the 
sun are enough, when it is raked together and is ready for the 
stack or the mow. 

In Ohio, a good field of timothy will yield four tons of hay 
to the acre ; in California, the wild oat stands so thick in a few 
places as to yield as much, but the average crop is not over a 
ton to the acre. The principal hay counties of the state are — 
San Joaquin, which in 1860 made 37,000 tons; Santa Clara 
and Yolo, 18,000 each; Sonoma, 17,000; Yuba, 14,000; Sac- 
ramento, 13,000 ; and Contra Costa, 11,000. Very little maize- 
fodder is used in the state. 

Tame grasses occupy, at the present time, a very small place 
in the agriculture of California. Not one-tenth of the farms 
in the state have an acre of cultivated pa^iire; and even in 
the largest farms, containing from three hundred to a thou- 
sand acres under i)lough, it is rare to find a field of timothy, 
clover, or alfalla. The last-mentioned Avill probably become 



AGRICULTURE. 181 

the principal grass grown in the state, since it is peculiarly 
fitted to thrive in a climate and soil so dry as ours. 

§ 141. Tobacco^ Cotton^ Rice. — California produces tobac- 
co of a fine quality, but the amount grown is small ; and the 
experience of its cultivation is too brief to furnish much infor- 
mation. It requires a moist soil, and most of the attempts to 
cultivate it in dry places in the Sacramento valley and in the 
vicinity of Los Angeles have failed. The best crops have been 
grown near the coast, north of San Pablo Bay and about the 
head of Suisun Bay. The tobacco-JDlant has been converted 
into a perennial at San Francisco ; one specimen of it growing 
up eight or ten feet high, like a tree. 

A little cotton of a good quality has been grown, but I think 
its cultivation can never be extensive. The cotton states have 
three times as much rain as California, and I presume that 
only our moistest lands could produce a good crop of it — 
such, for instance, as the tule-Iands in the valley of the San 
Joaquin. 

The question whether rice can be cultivated in the tule-lands 
has been much discussed, but is not yet decided, though it is 
the general opinion that some of the tule-lands will produce 
large and profitable crops. 

§ 142. Hop. — The hop grows luxuriantly and produces abun- 
dantly in California ; and indeed there is good reason to doubt 
Avhether any country has a climate and soil more favorable to 
it than ours. We have no heavy dews or showers in summer 
to wash ofi" the dust which contains the strength of the flow- 
ers, or to cover the plant with blight. The failures of crops, 
from these causes, so frequent in England and the Atlantic 
states, would never occur here. Not only is the crop certain, 
but it can be cured here with more ease and in better condi- 
tion than in other countries. The moisture of the air in Eng- 
land compels the hop-growers to dry the flowers in the sun or 
in kilns ; and if a rain fall ujjon them while drying, they are 
ruined: and they are injured by both the sun and kiln-drying. 
In California, they may be dried in the open air, under sheds; 



182 EESOUECES OF CALIPOENIA. 



and thus prepared, they will be superior to any of the Euro 
pean hops. 

The Chinese sugar-cane grows luxuriantly in this state, but 
it is not extensively cultivated. 

Flax, hemp, and the basket-willow, are not cultivated, or in 
patches so small as to be unworthy of notice. 

§ 143. Kitchen Vegetables. — The vegetables for the kitchen 
— such as cabbage, cauliflower, beets, parsnips, carrots, rad- 
ishes, onions, melons, squashes, pumpkins, green peas, string- 
beans, tomatoes, asparagus, rhubarb, okra, cucumbers, lettuce, 
garden-egg, and so forth — thrive in California, many of them 
beyond example elsewhere. Cabbages weighing fifteen pounds 
are wonders in the New York market ; in San Francisco they 
are common. Whole fields of cabbage-heads, weighing twenty 
pounds each, have been grown ; and hard, soUd heads, with no 
loose leaves, weighing forty -five and fifty-three pounds each, 
are on record. One cabbage, which did not make a head, 
grew to be seven feet wide, throwing out leaves three and a 
half feet long on each side. In many cases the cabbage has 
been converted into a perennial, evergreen, tree-like plant, by 
preventing it from going to seed. Several of these are now 
growing in the state, with stalks from two to six feet high, 
and a foliage that grows through -vN^inter and summer. 

The largest squash or soft-skin pumpkin produced in Cali- 
fornia weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, and the vine 
which bore it had several others weighing over one hundred 
pounds each; the total weight of its fruit being more than 
eight hundred pounds ! Elsewhere, sixty pounds is a very large 
pumpkin or squash ; and there is scarcely a record in the At- 
lantic states of a greater weight than one hundred pounds, 
which has been frequently surpassed here. In 1857, one 
squash-vine on the ranch of James Simmons, in Yuba county, 
produced one hundred and thirty squashes, weighing in all 
twenty-six hundred and four pounds ! In the same year, J. Q. 
A. Ballou, at San Jose, grew two squashes, weighing two hun- 
ired and ten and two hundred and four pounds respectively. 



1 



AGRICULTUBE. 183 

The largest Californian onion weighed forty-seven ounces 
avoirdupois, and measured twenty-two inches in circumference. 
Our onions generally excel those of the Eastern states iii size 
and weight. 

Our largest red beet weighed one hundred and eighteen 
pounds — ^was five feet long, and a foot in diameter. It was 
three years old. The first year it grew to weigh forty-eight 
pounds, and because of its large size was reserved for seed ; 
but it disappointed its owner, and, instead of producing seed 
the next year, merely kept on growmg, and reached the size 
of eighty-six pounds; and the following year got to a hundred 
and eighteen. Such beets can be grown in abundance. A beet 
of twenty ''pounds is a wonder in New York or London ; here 
it is too common to attract more than a glance. Beets fre- 
quently are three feet long, so that it requires no little trouble 
to dig them out. 

- Our largest common white turnip weighed, I believe, twenty- 
six pounds ; our largest carrot, ten pounds ; our largest water- 
melon, sixty-five pounds. 

Our largest tomato measured twenty-six inches in circum- 
ference. 

Our kitchen vegetables, grown in the open air, are in the 
market during a greater part of the year than in any state 
east of the Mississippi. We have cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, 
turnips, beets, carrots, parsnips, radishes, horseradish, celery, 
green onions, leeks, salsify, and parsley, throughout the year ; 
green peas, string-beans, water-melons, cantaloupes, and nut- 
meg-melons, from June to November inclusive ; tomatoes from 
May to October; garden-eggs, green okra, Lima-beans, and 
Californian sweet potatoes, from July to September ; aspara- 
gus from March to June ; and rhubarb from April to July — 
the months being meant inclusively in every instance. These 
seasons for the different species of vegetables are, on an aver- 
age, twice as long as the seasons on the Atlantic slope of the 
continent in the same latitude. Our tables are thus supplied 
with a great variety of fresh and wholesome vegetables 



184 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

throughout the year. Another advantage of our climate is, 
that garden vegetables may be left in the ground all winter. 
Potatoes are sometimes not dug until the first of January, and 
turnips and beets are usually left in their beds lintil they are 
to be sent to market ; there is never enough cold to freeze 
them. Potatoes are never buried, but after they are dug are 
piled up in bags under a shed, or are placed in a storehouse. 

The cabbage likes a moist air and soil, and thrives best along 
the coast, from Bodega to Santa Cruz. The melons and toma- 
toes like a warm climate, and thrive best in the Sacramento 
valley — and Putah valley, which is tributary to it — where 
many of the early vegetables for the San Francisco market are 
grown. 

§ 144. Fruit. — As a fruit-growing state, California takes a 
high position. In this particular, as in so many others, her 
climate gives her great advantages. In no part of the world 
do fruit-trees grow so rapidly, bear so early, so regularly, and 
so abundantly, and produce fruit of such large size. Nor is 
there any other country where so great a variety of fruit can 
be produced in high excellence. In the matter of flavor, our 
apples, peaches, and strawberries, or most of them, are infe- 
rior to Eastern fruit ; in the flavor of other species we are at 
least equal' to other countries. The pear, the plum, the apri- 
cot, the grape, and the olive, are peculiarly thrifty, healthy, 
and productive, as compared with the same kinds of fruit else- 
where. 

The Californian orchards are trained low, the lower limbs 
being within a foot or at most two feet of the ground. All 
kinds of fruit-trees are trained on the same principle. Men, 
therefore, do not walk under the trees in an orchard, or climb 
after the fruit. It would be as absurd to try to walk under or 
to climb a bearing apple-tree in California as to walk under or 
climb a gooseberry-bush. One fruit-tree in a hundred may be 
trained high, not more. The advantages of low training are, 
that the trees bear fruit earlier — a matter of the greatest im- 
portance in California, where the interest of money is so high, 



AGRICULTURE. 185 

and the price of fruit rapidly falling from year to year ; the 
trunk is shaded, and protected against the disease called the 
sun-scald ; the earth about the roots is kept moist ; and the 
trees are protected against the wind. 

The trees are planted from one-sixth to one-half nearer to- 
gether in the orchards than in the Eastern states. This is an 
additional protection against sun and wind. The ground is 
ploughed several times every summer, and kept clean ; whereas 
in the Eastern orchards it is common to sow grass or cultivate 
vegetables. Our apple-trees are free from the borers after the 
first year, and our plum and cherry trees from the curculio, 
though the plum suffers from the aphis or louse. 

Fruit-trees in California are generally as large at two years 
old as they are in New York at three and four years. The in- 
stances of unusually rapid growth here are without parallel 
elsewhere. Cherry-trees have grown to be fourteen feet high 
in one year ; pear-trees ten feet high ; peach-trees to have 
trunks from two to three inches in diameter. These were all 
from buds on yearling stocks, and were well provided with 
branches — not trimmed to gain height. These specimens of 
rapid growth were observed on an island near the junction of 
the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers. At Petaluma, a 
cherry-tree two years old from the graft, and three from the 
seed, had a trunk seven inches and three-quarters round ; a 
plum-tree, three years from the seed, was eleven feet high, and 
had a trunk seven inches in circumference ; and a peach-tree, 
one year from the bud, was eight feet high and eight and a 
half inches round. 

Mr. E. B. Crocker, of Sacramento, wrote thus in December, 
1858: "In Januar}--, 1855, I planted a small almond-tree, with 
a stem little larger than a goosequill, and which I cut down 
within a few inches of the ground. It is now a tree twenty 
feet high, sixteen feet through the top, with branches starting 
from the surface of the earth. The body below the branches 

is twenty-four inches in circumference A Glout Morceau 

dwarf pear-tree, planted in 1855, when it had grown one year 
9* 



186 RESOUTwCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

from the bud, is now ten feet high, four feet through the top, 
and measures ten inches round the body at the ground, branch- 
ing about one foot from the surface. A Beurre Diel dwarf, 
planted in January, 1856, is now seven feet high, three feet 
through the top, and ten inches in circumference at the ground. 
A dwarf May Duke cherry, planted in 1856, is now thirteen 
feet high, and thirteen and a half inches m circumference at 
the ground. An Old Mixon peach, planted in 1855, and cut 
down within a few inches of the ground, is now twenty feet 
high, twenty-two feet through the top, and the trunk twenty- 
eight inches in circumference. A seedling peach, seed planted 
in January, 1858, is now eight feet high and well branched, and 
the trunk four and a half inches in circumference at the ground. 
The growth of trees, vines, and shrubs, is about double that of 
similar kinds on the rich prairie-soils of Northern Indiana." 

In 1858, a sprig of a peach-tree, a foot long, was stuck into 
the ground on the Bay-state ranch ; the next year it bore fruit. 
It may be set down as a general rule that, previous to the time 
of bearing fruit, trees in California make twice as much wood 
in a year as they do in the middle states. 

In Alameda county, plum-trees have grown twelve feet in 
one year from the bud. 

The trees commence to bear fruit at about half the age at 
which they bear in the Atlantic states. An apple-orchard in 
New York begins to bear in its fifth or sixth year ; in Califor- 
nia, in its second or third. 

The variety of climates, and the freedom from frosts, severe 
cold, and furious storms, protect us against a ftiilure of the 
fruit-crop. 

Our apples, pears, apricots, and plums, are larger than the 
same varieties usually are elsewhere; other fruits are about 
the same in size. 

§ 145. Apples. — The Spanish Calif ornians had a few apple- 
trees, but they were seedlings of a poor class. The first good 
apples w^ere imported from Oregon in 1849 ; but the varieties 
were few, and the trees did not thrive. Either the stock was 



AGRICULTUKE. 187 

not the best, or the change of climate had an injurious influ- 
ence on them. In 1852, a few trees were imported byway 
of the isthmus of Panama; other importations followed very 
rapidly ; and now the state lias millions of trees in nursery, and 
about eight hundred thousand bearing trees in orchard, inclu- 
ding two hundred varieties, the best of Europe and the Atlan- 
tic states, both standard and dwarf trees. 

Apple-trees are usually planted from twelve to thirty feet 
apart, fourteen or sixteen being the more common distances. 
This is much closer together than is customary in the Atlantic 
states ; the reasons for the denser planting here being to pre- 
vent injury by the wind, and to keep the earth moist by sha- 
ding it against the sun. The apple-tree comes into bearing in 
the third- year in California, about two years earlier than in 
the Eastern states. It also grows more rapidly, a yearling tree 
liere being as large as a tAvo-year-old tree in Ohio. Grafts on 
yearling stocks have been known to grow six and eight feet in 
a season — twice as long as similar grafts Avill grow in the mid- 
dle states. The fruit usually grows larger here than elsewhere. 
The Gloria Mundi apple, w^hich elsewhere seldom exceeds 
fourteen ounces in Aveight, in California frequently reaches 
twenty ounces, and some have attained the great size of two 
and even two and a half pounds. 

The climate seems to have a tendency to ripen apples more 
thoroughly here than in other states. Those varieties which 
are grown for winter i;se elsewhere, are here generally con- 
verted into autumn apples, and only a few will keep to New- 
Year's Day. A fruit-groAver in Alameda has succeeded in 
keeping several kinds until June. Our list of winter apples is 
very short, and some years will pass before we can in this re- 
Sj^ect equal the middle states. Some varieties have been intro- 
duced here from Georgia and other Southern states, but we 
do not yet know how they will succeed. 

The flavor of our apples is not equal, as a general rule, to 
that of the apples grown on the Atlantic slope. They are less 
juicy, and more mealy. Some varieties, however^ are better 



188 RESOURCES OP CALIFOR]NIA. 

here than in the Eastern states. Great variations are observed 
in different parts of the state ; an apple may be excellent when 
the tree grows in the hot summer and cold winter high up on 
the Sierra Nevada ; and be of poor quality if grown in the 
equable temperature of the coast. 

The best varieties, so far as ascertained, about the bay of 
San Francisco, lire the Summer Pearmain, Red Astrakhan, Red 
June, and Early Harvest, for early apples ; the Porter, Graven- 
stein, and Summer Queen, for late summer apples ; the Bald- 
win, Roxbury Russet, and Rhode Island Greening, for fall 
apples; the Golden Russet, the Northern Spy, the Yellow 
Newtown Pippin, the White Winter Pearmain, and the Spitz- 
enberg, for winter apples. The best cider apple is the Smith's 
Cider. 

The leading counties in the production of apples are Santa 
Clara, Sacramento, Alameda, Sonoma, Napa, Marin, Yolo, Yuba, 
and El Dorado. 

The trees grow so rapidly and bear so abundantly, that some 
persons suppose our orchards must be short-lived ; and the old- 
est American orchard in the state — at the Mission of San Jose 
— is cited as proof of this theory. That orchard is evidently 
dying, though only eleven years old ; but its unhealthiness is 
owing to some influences peculiar to that spot. It has been 
gradually dying for four or five years, while other orchards six 
and eight years old are in perfect health. Besides, the fruit- 
trees of the old missions, many of them thirty years old, are 
still in excellent health and full bearing, and have not failed at 
any season during the last score of years to produce a good 
crop. The indigenous trees in our valleys have a thriftiness 
of growth and a precocity of development similar to our cul- 
tivated fruit-trees, and yet have a longevity equal to that of 
the similar species east of the Mississippi, where the summers 
are shorter, the winters colder, the annual growth less, and 
the development of the reproductive power later. 

§ 146. Peaches. — ^The peach-tree grows very rapidly, comes 
into bearing very early, and produces abundantly, in California ; 



AGKICULTUEE 189 

but nearly all varieties suiFcr with "the curl," which has given 
so much trouble during the last two years, that m:iny of the or- 
chards have been cut down. The varieties most free from the 
curl are the Late and Early Crawford, the Late Admirable, and 
the Smock. Li the valleys and near the ocean, the peaches are 
not equal, either in size or flavor, to the same varieties on the 
Atlantic slope ; but in the Sierra Nevada they are fully equal 
to the Eastern fruit. The peach does not thrive in the high 
winds which i3revail about San Francisco Bay. The trees are 
usually set out in orchard when one year old from the graft or 
bud ; in the second year after that, they begin to bear. 

§ 147. Pears. — The pear is the most productive and healthy 
of the fruit-trees of California. It thrives in all parts of the 
state, and everywhere its fruit is delicate in flavor and large in 
size. There are pear-trees at San Jose which produce twenty- 
five hundred pounds or forty bushels each of fruit annually. 
Tlie pear was more cultivated by the Spanish Californians than 
any other fruit ; but their varieties were not good, and most of 
the old trees have been grafted with varieties brought from 
the Atlantic states during the last eight years. The varieties 
most prized are the Madeline, Bloodgood, Diane d'ete. Dear- 
born's Seedling, and Bartlett, for summer pears ; and the Win- 
ter Nelis, Glout Morceau, Easter Beurre, and Pear d' Albert, 
for winter. 

Neither tree nor fruit is troubled by any bug, fire-blight, 
sun, or rain. 

§ 148. Apricots and Plwns. — The apricot thrives well and 
bears abundantly, especially in the warmer parts of the .state. 
The fruit, however, in some places is much eaten by bugs and 
bees. The bugs — some of them of the kind commonly called 
" Lady-bug," and others similar in a}tpearance and size — eat 
holes in the apricots before they are ripe ; and the bees, which 
never break the skin, eat at the holes which the bugs have 
commenced. The a[)ricot-tree is more healthy than the peach, 
and produces more abundantly ; and its fruit supplies the place 
of the peach in many districts. 



190 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

The nectarine is affected by the curl, and is not much culti- 
vated. 

If the curculio should not be introduced, the plum will oc 
cupy a very prominent place in the horticulture of the state. 
The tree is healthy ; and the fruit is large, finely-flavored, and 
abundant. The climate is very favorable to drying fruit, and 
prunes might be made here with a profit. 

The cherry and the soft-shell almond thrive in all the valleys 
of the state. 

The fig-tree is cultivated from Shasta to San Diego, but 
does not produce abundantly north of latitude 35°. In the 
vicinity of Los Angeles it is a very thrifty and productive tree. 
It produces two crops of fruit annually. North of 37° the sec- 
ond crop is usually killed by the frost or stunted by the cold. 

The almond and the English walnut both grow well and 
produce abundantly about Los Angeles, but do not thrive so 
well north of Santa Barbara. The almond suffers, and loses 
its fruit, with a slight touch of frost. 

The pomegranate is a healthy and productive bush in Cali- 
fornia, but its fruit is not profitable. It is cultivated to a 
small extent in all the large fruit-gardens. 

§ 149. Olives. — For the cultivation of the olive, California 
has great advantages. The tree is very healthy, and always 
bears abundantly ; whereas in Italy and Greece, whence most 
of our olive-oil comes, the crop is frequently destroyed by sum- 
mer rains, blight, and insects, all of which causes of trouble are 
unknown here. There it is expected that the crop will fail 
one year in three, whereas here no failure has ever been known. 
The number of our olive-trees is small, most of those in bear- 
ing having been planted half a century ago. Nor is it likely 
that there will be a rapid increase. The tree does not come 
into bearing until ten years of age, at least not in Europe ; and 
although it may live and continue in bearing for five or six 
centuries, the j^ossibility of a steady income to our remote 
posterity will not pay Californians for investing their money 
in a business that will yield no income for a decade of years. 



I 



AGRICULTURE. 191 

Most of the bearing olive-trees are in the town of Los An- 
geles, and at the Missions of San Fernando, San Gabriel, and 
San Juan Capistrano. 

The olive-tree resembles a willow in the form and color of 
its bark, the shape and proportions of its trunk and branches, 
and the size, color, and distribution of its leaves. The trees 
are grown from cuttings or shoots, which latter frequently 
sprout from the large trees near the surface of the ground. A 
large olive-orchard in full bearing w^ould prove an excellent 
income, for the fruit and the oil are in demand. 

§ 150. Oranges. — The orange is cultivated in Los Angeles; 
and, althouirh the trees now there are covered with insects to 
such an extent, that most of them bear no fruit, yet I think 
there is reason to hope that the fruit will, at no distant day, be 
cultivated extensively and profitably. 

A Avarmer clime than that of this state is undoubtedly more 
congenial to the orange than ours ; but in those lands where 
the chmate is warmer, the men are less industrious and intelli- 
gent. Cultivation, which is the first element in the develop- 
ment of every species of fruit, is wanting there, while here 
there is no lack, Not that our climate is so cold as to make 
it doubtful wiiether Ave can cultivate the orange in the open 
air : long experience has settled the fact that the orange-tree 
will thrive and produce well from Santa Barbara southward. 

We have no exact information as to the time when the or- 
ange was introduced into California, nor from what stock the 
old orange-trees came. Probably the first missionaries brought 
orange-seeds with them from Lower California, that stock bav- 
in 2: come from the indig-enous trees aloncr the western coast of 
Mexico. The seeds were planted at various old missions, such 
as San Diego, San Fernando, San Juan Capistrano, and so forth. 
The trees grew, Avere planted out, bore Avell, received little at- 
tention or cultivation, and some of them are still standing as 
monuments to the industry and enterprise of the old priests. 

There are now, so far as I can learn, about twenty -five hun- 
dred orange-trees set out in orchard in the state, more than 



192 BESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

two-thirds of them being in the orchard of William Wolfskill, 
in the town of Los Angeles. About four hundred of the 
orange-trees in the state are old — from ten to fifty years of 
age ; the remainder are young, from six to eight years old, at 
which age they begin to come into bearing. 

The proper way to raise orange-trees is to make a bed about 
three feet wide and twenty long, with the earth in it well pul- 
verized ; and in January or February plant this bed with seeds, 
in rows a foot apart, and the seeds six inches apart in the rows, 
and about aix inches deep. The bed should be weeded care- 
fully, and kept constantly moist. If in the dry sand of Los 
Angeles county, the bed should be irrigated once a week. At 
the end of three years the trees will be four feet high and an 
inch and a half thick in the trunk. They should then be set 
out in the orchard where they are to stand, and be planted 
twenty-five or thirty feet apart each way. The transplanting 
should be done in any of the spring months, the earlier the 
better, and should be immediately followed by irrigation. The 
transplanting should not take place when the young trees are 
growing, and therefore the trees should not be irrigated be- 
fore transplanting, especially if the weather be warm ; for 
warmth and irrigation would have a tendency to start the 
shoots. 

The trees begm to bear in their seventh year, when they are 
about ten feet high, and the trunks from three to five inches 
thick. At fourteen years they are in full bearing, and they 
continue to bear till they are at least fifty years of age, proba- 
bly much longer. In full bearing, every tree will produce at 
least one thousand oranges a year, and some trees will regu- 
larly produce two or three thousand. The tree grows to be 
thirty feet high, the top spreading out thirty feet wide. It 
blossoms early in the spring, and the fruit is ripe in the follow- 
ing February, although it looks ripe in December. Tlie or- 
anges will keep well until May, if left on the tree. The fruit 
is always in demand, and always commands a high price; and 
previous to 1857, Mr. Wolfskill made more than one hundred 



AGRICULTURE. 193 

dollars apiece annually from his bearing trees; but since that 
time the bugs have injured the crop seriously. 

The tree is very beautiful, and grows continuously. The 
wood is hard and valuable. The tops grow very bushy, and 
frequently branches have to be cut out to allow the air to have 
access to the fruit and leaves ; and sometimes the trees have 
to be suj^ported, to save them from breaking down under the 
Aveight of their fruit. The trees, after setting out in the or- 
chard, should be irrigated thrice every summer, and, unless 
the land is rich, should be ftianured. 

The bug, a species of Aphis, has fixed itself in most of the 
bearing trees in the state ; and unless some remedy not now 
in use be applied, it will probably kill all the trees. Many- 
devices to drive away the pest have been tried in vain. But 
there must be a bane for this busc : when that bane is once 
found, the cultivation of the orange will take an important 
place in the horticulture of the southern part of the state, and 
therefore every good citizen is interested in finding it. 

§ 151. The Grape. — California is a favorite land of the 
grape ; and indeed many of our vine-growers suppose it to be 
the best grape country in the world. 

The grape region of California extends from the southern 
boundary, at latitude 32° 30', to 41°, a distance of five hundred 
and ninety-five miles from north to south, with an average 
breadth from east to west of about one hundred miles. The 
Los Angeles grape district is in an open plain about seventy 
miles long, and reaching back thirty miles from the ocean — 
bounded on the east by barren, rugged mountains. The So- 
noma, Naj^a, and Santa Clara grape districts, are in flat, nar- 
row valleys, shut in by steep, rugged ridges of the Coast 
Mountains, between latitude 37° 30' and 39°. The Sacramento 
grape district is in a flat valley, about half way between moun- 
tain-ranges fifty miles apart. The grape districts of the Sierra 
Nevada are situated on the western slopes of those high m(;nn- 
tains, usually in very small dales. 

The soil of the vineyards at Los Angeles and Anaheim is a 



194 RESOURCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

deep, liglit, warm sand, which, to the inexperienced eye, looks 
as though it were too poor to produce any valuable vegetable 
growth. In those places where Avater runs through it for a 
few days, all the mould is dissolved and carried ofl", leaving a 
white and almost pure sand. The soil is so dry, that cultiva- 
tion is possible only with the assistance of irrigation. In So- 
nera and Napa valleys the vineyards are planted in a red, 
gravelly clay near the foot of the mountains, or in a light, sandy 
loam in the centre of the valley. Of late,4he vine-growers of 
these valleys have done without irrigation. In Santa Clara 
valley most of the vines have been placed in a rich, black 
loam, but their vineyards are unhealthy. The Sacramento 
vineyards are planted in sandy loam ; those of the Sierra Ne- 
vada in sandy loam or in gravelly clay. 

The vme was brought to California by the Spanish mission- 
aries about the year.lT^O. So far as is known, only one vari- 
ety — that now known as the Los Angeles grape — was brought 
by them in the last century. It is the vine found in all the old 
vineyards and in most of the new ones south of the bay of San 
Francisco. It fills three-fourths of the vineyards in the state. 
The berry is round, reddish-brown while ripening, and nearly 
black when fully ripe, about five-eighths of an inch in diame- 
tar at its largest size, covered by a strong skin, possessing an 
abundance of thick and very sweet juice, with little meat, but 
with no fruitiness of flavor. It has been asserted that this grape 
is of the Malaga variety ; but if so, it has changed so much- — 
perhaps while under cultivation in Mexico, whence the first 
cuttings that came to California were probably obtained — that 
it no longer resembles its parent stock. 

About 1820, when the missions were established north of 
the bay of San Francisco, a new variety, now called the So- 
noma grape, and said by General Yallejo to be of the Madeira 
stock, was introduced. It is now extensively cultivated in 
Sonoma and Napa counties and in the Sacramento valley, and 
is also found in a few vineyards south of the bay of San Fran- 
cisco. The berry is bluish-black in color ; is covered, when 



AGRICULTURE. 195 

ripe, with a grayish dust, which brushes off, leaving a glossy, 
smooth skin ; is about half an inch in diameter at its largest 
size ; has a thin, sweet juice, with more nieat and a little fruiti- 
ness of a flavor. 

The Sonoma grape makes a light wine, resembling claret ; 
the Los Angeles grape makes a strong wine, resembling port 
and sherry. The two grapes are classed together as the " Mis- 
sion," " Native," or " Californian" grapes, and were the only 
varieties cultivated here previous to 1853. In that year the 
importation of foreign grapes commenced, and now about two 
hundred varieties are cultivated. The Mission G:raDes are 
hardy, healthy, long-lived, productive, and early in coming into 
bearing ; but they are surpassed in flavor, hardiness, produc- 
tiveness, earliness of ripening, and earliness of bearing, by 
many foreign varieties, which, so far as is known, are not infe- 
rior in any respect. The latter have Seen tried, however, only 
three or four years, and therefore Ave cannot speak positively 
whether they will prove so long-lived, or whether they will be 
equal in some other points to the Mission grapes. 

Still, the superiority of the foreign grapes is so great, that 
no reasonable man, acquainted with the subject, doubts that 
they will drive the Mission grapes out of the market. Flavor 
is a matter of vast importance in fresh fruit, and the want of it 
is the great defect of the Mission grape, which will not com- 
mand more than six or eight cents per pound in the San Fran- 
cisco market, at the very time that fine foreign varieties bring 
twenty-five and thirty-seven cents. Cuttings of the Mission 
grapes can now be had for ten dollars per thousand, a price 
that will not more than pay for preparing them for market ; 
while those of the foreign cost from forty to one hundred and 
fifty dollars per thousand. For wine, the foreign grape has an 
equal or still greater advantage. Flavor and fruitinoss are not 
less needed there than in fruit to be eaten fresh at the table. 
The lack of fruitiness is the great misfortune of the wine made 
from the Culilbrnian grape, and the evil can only be remedied 
by the use, of tho»foreign grape. 



196 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

For raisins the Mission grape is unsuited, because it is all 
juice and lacks meat. Again, we want various kinds of grapes 
to make diiferent kinds of wine, and to give variety to our 
tables ; and we wish also to have early and late grapes, so that 
our wine-making may extend through a long season, and that 
our tables may have grapes upon them from August to Decem- 
ber. The foreign grapes, it has been observed, are stronger to 
resist the frost than the Mission grape. The latter is there- 
fore doomed, if not to destruction, at least to a subordinate 
position. 

About two hundred varieties of grape are cultivated in Cali- 
fornia, including the most noted stocks of Spain, France, Ger- 
many, Hungary, and the Eastern states. Xearly all of them 
thrive, and it can scarcely be said authoritatively that any one 
of them has proved a failure. The Catawba and Isabella do 
well; the latter furnishing our finest table-grajDe for some 
tastes, while others prefer some of the Muscatels. 

The total number of grape-vines planted in vineyard in the 
state is about nine and a half millions, or ten thousand five 
hundred acres, of which more than one-third are in Los An- 
geles county. One-fifteenth of these may be foreign vines, of 
which one-half are in Sonoma county. There were probably 
two hundred thousand bearing vines in the state in 1 848, and 
they still continue productive. Very little was done to increase 
their number until 1856, and then the business of grape-grow- 
ing and making Avine for the market was commenced. The 
new vineyards then set out were planted with Mission grapes, 
the only variety of which cuttings in large quantities could be 
obtained. A few foreign vines had been imported in 1853, 
'54, and '55, by nurserymen, but there was little demand for 
them. When it became clear that California would produce 
wine largely, the foreign varieties came into demand. It was 
not until 1859 that the superiority of the foreign grapes as a 
class over the JMission grape was established by trial. 

The advantages of California for the cultivation of the grape 
are the following : 



AGRICULTURE. 197 

1. Californian vineyards produce ordinarily twice as much as 
the vineyards of any other grape district, if general report be 
true. Here, twelve thousand pounds of grapes' per acre is a crop 
as common as six thousand in France, Germany, or Ohio, Why 
our vineyards should produce so much more than those else- 
where I know not, but the fact is indubitable. Crops of twenty 
thousand pounds per acre have been seen here, but never else- 
where, if witnesses, generally considered credible, are to be 
believed. 

2. The grape-crop never fails, as it does in every other coun- 
try. This is owing partly to the fact that we have no severe 
frosts, no hail, and no storms of rain and. electricity from the 
time the vine buds until the grape is gathered, each of which 
often causes a total loss of the crops in Europe. There is abun- 
dant time for gathering the grape, while in other vine coun- 
tries the rain and frost destroy the fruit after it is ripe. The 
oidiimi — the disease which has done such great damage in 
France — appeared in 1859, but has done no injury as yet save 
in a few small, young vineyards. I have heard of it only in 
Santa Clara, Sonoma, and Alameda counties, where the vines 
are planted in a wet, black loam, or stiff clay. Bugs and in- 
sects, which do much harm in European vineyards, have as 
yet done no injury worthy of note in California. 

3. Vineyards in other countries require more labor than in 
California. In Europe, the vine is trained with a stalk four 
feet high, and supported by a pole, w^hich has to be set down 
every year, and to which the vine is tied. Here the stalk 
stands alone. 

4. The equability and warmth of the climate render it easy 
to make wine by fermentation without artificial heat during 
the winter ; whereas in other grape countries fires must be 
kept up in the cellars through the winter. 

5. The great variety of grapes which thrive here as com- 
pared with every other grape country. _ 

The disadvantages of California consist in the high price of 
labor (three times as high as in Ohio, and four times as high 



198 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOKNIi. 

as in Europe), the ignorance of the people of the arts of vine- 
growing and wine-making, the dearness of casks (costing from 
five to twenty cents per gallon), and the necessity of irriga- 
tion. 

Land suitable for vineyards costs from twenty to one hun- 
dred dollars per acre, whereas it is worth several times as much 
in France ; but there is a counterbalancing diiference in the 
interest of money, so that the French vine-land at four hundred 
dollars per acre, bought with money borrowed at six per cent. 
a year, costs little more than a Californian vineyard bought for 
one hundred dollars, with money at twenty-seven per cent. 

The vine likes a sandy or gravelly (not very moist) soil, and 
never thrives in wet, loamy, or stiff clay soil. In California, 
nearly all the vineyards are planted on flat land ; in Europe, 
hills are preferred, and in Germany the name for a vineyard is 
*' Weinberg" — a vine-hill. 

Vineyards are planted with cuttings or with rooted vines. 
The cuttings are obtained at the annual pruning in January or 
February, are about thirty inches long, and are all of wood 
less than a year old. They should be taken from vines not 
less than four years old. The rooted vines are cuttings which 
are planted in the nursery and allowed to grow there through 
one season. These latter may be planted out from November 
to March, inclusive ; cuttings from January to March. It is 
not usual to plough more than once before planting, but sev- 
eral ploughings would be better. The vines are planted either 
six and a half or eight feet apart each w^ay : the former distance 
giving one thousand vines to the acre, is customary at Los An- 
geles ; the latter, giving six hundred and eighty vines to the 
acre, is preferred in Sonoma and Napa. The vines are planted 
about two feet deep, perpendicularly, leaving aibout three or 
four inches with two buds above the surface. The holes are 
usually made with a crow-bar, and after the vine is thrust down 
into it, a little loose sand or pulverized dirt is poured in to fill 
up the hole. Sometimes holes are dug with the spade. Unless 
the ground is very moist, the newly-planted vineyard is irri- 



A G n 1 C U L T LT K E . 1 99 

gated ; for the vine, when taking root, likes water. Daring 
the first year after planting, the vine-grower has nothing to do 
save to irrigate twice, to plough several times, and to hoe 
down such weeds as cannot be reached with the plough. 

There is very little growth of wood the first year, but it fre- 
quently happens that cuttings bear grapes — one bunch, it may 
be, to a dozen vines. Rooted vines do not bear the first year. 
The next year the ground should be kept loose and clean by 
ploughing and hoeing twice or thrice. Any suckers springing 
out from buds beneath the surface must be broken off, and a 
little pruning is done. In pruning, regard is had to the form 
which the stalk is to have. 

The vine bears fruit on new wood ; that is, on twigs pro- 
duced in the same season with the grape. All the twigs are 
cut off every year, leaving a bare stalk. In the old vineyards 
of California the stalks are from three to five feet high. Of 
late, the more general custom is to make the stalks about fif- 
teen inches high. It is observed that the nearer the grapes to 
the ground, the earlier they ripen, and the less liable they are 
to injury from frost and wind. The strongest shoot is selected 
to make the stalk, and it is tied to a little stake stuck into the 
ground at its side, and the other shoots are cut off. It is a 
matter of importance to use the stake so that the vines may 
grow straight up. Vineyards planted with cuttings bear no 
grapes the second year ; those planted with rooted vines may 
bear a few. In the southern part of the state the vineyard 
must be irrigated at least twice every summer ; in many locali- 
ties in the northern and middle districts, irrigation is consid- 
ered unnecessary, though it would undoubtedly be beneficial 
during the first year. 

The third year, the ploughing and hoeing is the same as the 
second. More attention must be given to the pruning. All 
the twigs are cut off save two or three, which sprout from the 
fop of the stalk, and these are pruned so as to leave but two 
buds on each, which are to produce all the wood and fruit of 
the season. This year the vines should produce ttn-ee or four 



200 EESOUECES OP CALHTOENIA. 

pounds of grapes each ; some vineyards have averaged twelve 
pounds to the stalk the third year. 

The fourth year, the five or six twigs all starting from the 
top of the stalk are left with two eyes each ; and this year the 
yield should be six or eight pounds per vine. The fifth year, 
there should be seven or eight twigs, with two eyes each, and 
the grape-yield should be ten pounds per vine. The sixth year, 
the vine is in full growth, and there should be eight or ten 
twigs, and from ten to fifteen pounds of fruit per vine. About 
the fortieth year the vine begins to decay. After the third or 
fourth year, if the vine has been well trained, it needs no stake 
for support, but stands alone. 

The towns most notable for the cultivation of the vine in 
California are Los Angeles, Anaheim, and Sonoma — all grape- 
towns, and the only towns which depend chiefly on the grape 
for their revenue. Los Angeleshas about 1,900,000 vines, Ana- 
heim 400,000, and Sonoma 1,500,000. Many of the vmes of So- 
noma are not yet old enough to bear ; those of Anaheim are 
all now (1862) in their fourth year; while more than one-half 
of those of Los Angeles have been in full bearing for several 
years. The Cocomongo ranch, in San Bernardino county, 
owned by J. Rains, has a vineyard of 165,000 vines, most of 
them very young yet. This ranch is one thousand feet above 
the sea-level, and has the reputation of producing the best wine 
in the state. Hock farm, in Sutter county, has a large vine- 
yard, owned by Emil Sutter, a son of Captain J. A. Sutter, 
and the wine produced there has an excellent reputation. 

Among the largest vineyards in the state are the following: 

A. Haraszthj, Sonoma 500,000 vines. 

John Rains, Cocomongo 165,000 vines. 

B. D. Wilson, San Gabriel 100,000 vines. 

William Wolfskill, Los Angeles 85,000 vines. 

C. H. S. Williams, Sonoma 68,000 vines. 

Matthew Keller, Los Angeles 61,000 vines. 

Corbett and Dibblee, Santa Anita 60,000 vines. 

T. J. White, Los Angeles 50,000 vines. 

J. R. Scott, Los Angeles 50,000 vines. 



AGRICULTURE. 201 

There are many vineyards in the mining counties, but they 
are small and young. In 1858, an acre of bearing vineyard was 
worth a thousand dollars ; but since then the supply of grapes 
and native wines has increased to such an extent, that the vine- 
yards have depreciated fifty per cent. The profits of wine- 
making several years ago, induced the vine-growers to make 
their wine hastily and carelessly, and much of it is poor stuff, 
that has brought all native wines into discredit. The wine- 
business, just now depressed, will in a year or two become 
better, and then vine-planting will take a new start, and vine- 
yards will rise in value. 

§ 152. Wine-making. — The making of wine is considered a 
a branch of agriculture. In 1861, California probably made 
about a million gallons of wine, and the amount will increase 
within five years to three million gallons. The best wines are 
made from foreign grapes, of which, however, not many are as 
yet produced in the state ; so that the Mission grapes yield 
the chief supply. The principal classifications of wme are into 
red and white, light and heavy, still and sparkling. 

Wine -making commences with the ripening of the grapes, 
about the middle of September. The berry is considered to 
be fully ripe when the heart has taken a tinge resembling the 
darkness of the skin ; when the berry is perfectly sweet, and 
comes off easily from the stem, leaving no juice upon it; and 
when, on holding a bunch up to the sun, the fibres running 
from the stem into the berry are nearly or quite invisible. 

The branches are cut off with a knife, after the dew or fog 
(if any) has been dispelled, put into a basket, and carried to 
the press. Here the rotten and unripe berries are carefully 
picked out, and the bunches are then thrown upon a coarse 
wire sieve. A man presses the bunches upon this sieve, 
through which the grapes fall, some broken and others un- 
broken, while the large stems and leaves will not pass, and are 
thrown away. Below the sieve is the masher, composed of 
two rollers, ten inches in diameter and three feet long, made 
of iron or wood. These rollers, turning toward each other, 
10 




202 EESOTTECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

crush the berries, but do not bruise the seeds, which, if crushed, 
would give a bitter taste to the wiue. If the wine is to be 
white, the pulp is pressed as it comes from the masher ; if it 
is to be red, the pulp is left to stand for six or eight days, so 
that the red color of the skins may be communicated to the 
juice. This is the only mode in which Avines are colored. 
The juice as it comes from the fresh berry is never red, but 
some varieties of grape make a yellowish juice. 

After the pressing, the red and white wines are treated in 
the same manner. The juice is put into large casks, usually 
those of one hundred and forty gallons each, and about one 
hundred and fifteen gallons are put in each. The casks are 
thus not filled entirely, but a considerable surface of the wine 
is left exposed to the air. This is to favor fermentation, to 
which the atmosphere is necessary. The cask lies upon its 
side, the bunghole is left open, and in three or four days the fer- 
mentation begins ; in three or four more its period of greatest 
activity has passed. The temperature is a matter of the ut- 
most importance to fermentation, the proper degree being 
about 65° Fahrenheit; and if the liquid be kept either warmer 
or colder than that figure, it will be in great danger of spoil- 
ing. The fermentation is accompanied by a rising of little air- 
bubbles to the surface, where they burst, making a noise that 
may be heard by applying the ear to the bunghole, and which 
is sometimes so loud as to be heard in the cellar at a distance 
of ten or twenty feet from the barrel. 

After the fermentation has been in progress three or four 
days, the wine-maker pours in six or eight gallons of fresh 
juice every day, until the cask is full ; and for several days 
after that he leaves the bunghole still opejj, and throws out 
all scum that rises to the surface there. Wlien the scum has 
ceased to rise, the barrel is closed, and not disturbed for a pe- 
riod which should not be less than three weeks nor more tlian 
three months. After this, comes the " racking off." All the 
liquor, except about four inches at the bottom, containing sedi- 
ment, is drawn off through a siphon, or a cock placed above 



AGRICULTURE. 203 

the level of the sediment. The remainder is filtered through 
a doubled cotton cloth, and is then poured in with the clear 
liquor, or used in making brandy. The sediment deposited in 
the bottom of the cask within the first three months is about 
one-twentieth in weight of the juice as it comes from the press. 
After the first racking, the new cask is filled up, the buixg is 
put in, and the wine is not disturbed till March or April, when 
it begins to feel a more lively fermentation, for that process 
never ceases entirely. 

It is said that the wine sympathizes with the vine, and that 
whenever the latter is in active development, the former feels 
a peculiar impulse also. Thus, the periods wlien the vine 
sprouts in March or April, when it blossoms in June, and when 
the grape ripens in September, are also the times when the fer- 
nientation is the most active. At those seasons the bungs must 
be taken ofi", or at least loosened, and the barrels must not bo 
moved. 

It is an important point with wine-makers to avoid disturb- 
ing the process of fermentation. Between times, when the 
w^ine is at rest, it should be racked off*, and placed in a clean 
cask. At the end of a year and a half the wine has become 
clear, but it continues to grow better with age for about a 
score of years, about the expiration of which jDciiod it has ac- 
quired a mellowness and delicacy of flavor and an oiliness of 
consistency which neither gain nor lose by longer preserva- 
tion. 

Many kinds of w^ine are made in California. The light wines 
come in this state, as in other j^arts of the world, from the 
northern, and the strong wines from the southern districts. 
The wines of Los Angelica have a body like those of Spain, 
and the wines of Sonoma and the upper Sacramento valley re- 
semble claret and hock. A wine similar to port is made in 
tlie southern part of the state, by leaving tlie grapes on the 
vines until they are " dead ripe," and somewhat shrivelled by 
the sun. The juice is then very strong, and, being left with 
the pulp ten days or two Aveeks, takes a strong, dark red color. 



204 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

Wine is defined to be "the fermented juice of the grape," 
and therefore "Angehca" is not properly a wine, though it is 
usually classed under that title. It is made by mixing brandy, 
in proportions varying from one-fifth to one-third, with the 
grape-juice fresh from the press or but a few hours old. The 
brandy prevents fermentation. Angelica is a sweet liquor, 
and is usually considered a proper drink for women ; but it is 
really stronger than the fermented wines. 

The wine made of the juice that drips from the masher, or 
of the first drainings from the press, is considered superior to 
that obtained by severe pressure from the pulp. After the 
pulp has been pressed, it is sometimes covered with water, 
allowed to stand a few days, and pressed again ; and the wine 
made of this liquor is called " Piquet," a very light wine, and 
generally sourish in taste. 

Some sparkling wine has been made in California, but thus 
far without great success. The only house which has engaged 
extensively in the business is that of Sainsevain Brothers, who 
brought an experienced workman from the champagne district 
of France. They own a large vineyard at Los Angeles, and 
another at San Jose, and have a large capital invested in the 
wine-business. Their foilure in making the " sparkling Cali- 
fornia," as they call their effervescent wine, was owing to the 
strength of the Los Angeles grape, and the " earthiness" of its 
taste, which earthiness is stronger in the sparkling than in the 
still liquid. Effervescent wines should not be strong; and the 
grapes grown at Los Angeles, or at least the Mission grapes 
grown there, are too strong. I speak of the experiment as a 
" failure," meaning thereby that the Sainsevains have not made 
an article equal to the best brands of imported champagnes ; 
but, for all that, it is a passably good wine. Attempts are to 
be made this year, and for several years to come, with the 
lighter wines made in the middle and northern parts of the 
state, and there is good reason to believe that the experiment 
will prove entirely successful. 

Sparkling wine is treated like still wine until after the first 



I 



AGEICULTUEE. 205 

fermentation, except that it receives much more attention, and 
is made from a more careful selection of berries, than any other 
kind of wine. After the first fermentation, the wine is jfut in 
bottles, and these are placed in racks wdth their necks down, 
the racks being made so that the bottles can be raised and 
lowered ; and the position of the bottles is changed from time 
to time, to assist fermentation, which continues, though in a 
suppressed form — the carbonic acid gas being retained in the 
"wine, instead of escaping as it does during the fermentation 
of still wines in the open barrel. The management of spark- 
ling wines is very complicated. It varies greatly in difierent 
places, and is usually kept as secret as possible. Thus, the 
Sainsevains keep their process to themselves. 

White grapes will not make a red wine ; but the skins, if 
left to ferment with the juice, will give it a dirty-yellow or 
light-brown color. 

The general custom, in making wine, is to use the pure juice 
of the grape, but wine-makers consider it not unwholesome or 
disreputable to put sugar, water, or brandy, into certain kinds 
of wines ; all of which, however, are unnecessary and injurious 
to the finer kinds of still wines. Sugar and water endanger 
the keeping qualities of the wdne, and brandy spoils the flavor. 
In France, it is common to put sugar or rock-candy into wine 
intended for the sweet tastes of the Americans ; and in bad 
years, when the grapes are sourish, they sweeten a little for 
home consumption. Brandy is sometimes used to prevent 
W' ine from turning into vinegar ; but the mixture, if strong 
enough to have the desired effect, deserves rather the name 
of adulterated brandy than of wine. Different kinds of pure 
wanes may be mixed without impropriety, but the label should 
not misrepresent the nature of the mixture. It is a fraud to 
niix a bad wine with a fine article, and then sell it by the name 
of the latter. If a wine-maker sends his wine into the market 
under his own name, no other person can honestly mix any 
thing else with it, and still preserve the name of the original 
maker. 



206 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

Most of the wines hitherto made in California have been 
pure, but not fine in flavor. The Mission grape lacks delicacy 
and fruitiness of taste, and gives an earthiness or harshness to 
the wine. These defects will probably be remedied by the 
use of the foreign grapes, and their mixture with the native 
Mission grape. Still wines, equal to the best still wines of 
France, have been made from foreign grapes in California; 
and we presume that we can make equally as good wine, in 
very large quantities, so soon as we have the grapes. Only 
about one-tenth of the foreign vines planted in the state are 
now in bearing. 

The skin of the grape probably contains tannin, for the red 
wines have an astringent taste not common to the white. 

The cellar is a matter of great importance to the wine- 
maker. From the moment when the grape-juice comes from 
the press until the wine is brought upon the table to be drunk, 
it should be kept in a cellar ; and it is only in a cellar that the 
equability and coolness of temperature proper to favor fermen- 
tation can be obtained. In France and Germany, it is often 
necessary to have fires in the cellars; and it would be well to 
have them occasionally in California. Indeed, wine-makers 
generally have no cellars, but only -houses. In Los Angeles 
county, most of the wine is kept in adobe houses. The sandi- 
ness of the land, the frequent irrigation, and the proximity of 
the vines to the places where the wine is stored, would lead to 
the filling of deep cellars with water ; so the cellars are dug 
only three or four feet into the ground ; and an adobe wall 
three feet thick, and a thick covering, render the cellars pretty 
cool. In Sonoma, Colonel Haraszthy has dug a wine-cellar in 
the side of a hill of magnesian limestone. The wine-cellar 
should be used for wine alone, because the presence of other 
things — especially salt meat, leather, and putrefying vegetables 
— may spoil the flavor of the wine. 

It is probable that, in many of the vineyards, the soil will 
not produce a first-rate wine. In Europe, the wines from the 
flat lands are generally of an inferior quality. To what extent 



AGRICULTUEE. 207 

tliis rule prevails here, cannot be ascertained until we have 
given the finer foreign grapes a fair trial. Certainly the Mis- 
sion grape takes up in most of the vineyards an earthiness of 
taste which must never be found in whies of the best quality. 
We cannot yel tell what are our best grape-soils, or how they 
differ from one another in their influences on the wine. It is 
certainly no easy matter to make fine wine out of the Mission 
grape, and most of our wine-makers have little experience in 
the business. Again, they send their wine to the market too 
soon after it is made. They often use old barrels and bottles, 
which may give a taste to the wine. They have also been too 
careless in pressing grapes before they were fully ripe, and 
without picking out the green and rotten fruit. 

§ 153. Berries. — Alameda county cultivates, chiefly for the 
San Francisco market, four hundred and fifty acres of straw- 
berries, one hundred of raspberries, and thirty of blackberries 
— more than all the remainder of the state. The varieties of 
strawberries most prized are the British Queen and Long- 
worth's Prolific. They are planted in rows, thirty inches 
apart, and the plants are a foot apart in the rows. The straw- 
berry comes into the market in April, and continues abundant 
till July, but it may be obtained in any month in the year ; 
and the only reason why large quantities are not grown from 
August to October inclusive, is, that they are not in demand, 
because of the abundance of cheaper fruits. It must always 
be costly as compared with the tree-fruits, because it is more 
perisliable, requires greater cultivation, costs more for pick- 
ing, and produces less to the acre, The picking alone costs 
about two cents a pound, being done by Chinamen, who pick 
forty pounds in a day, and are paid seventy-five cents a day, 
they providing their own food. The average yield per acre is 
about one thousand pounds, and the average wholesale price 
in 1861, during the season of their abundance, nine cents per 
pound, making a gross yield of one hundred and twenty dol- 
lars to the acre. The largest field of strawberries contains 
eighty acres, the second seventy, and the third sixteen. Very 



208 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

few strawberries are preserved, or used in any way save to be 
eaten fresh on the table. 

Most of the raspberry-fields of Cahfornia are in Oakland and 
its immediate vicinity. The land about a mile northward from 
the Oakland wharf is said to be peculiarly favorable to the 
raspberry. The average yield is about fifteen hundred pounds 
per acre, and the wholesale price in 1861 was ten cents per 
pound. The picking is done by Chinamen, and costs from 
three to four cents a pound. The bushes are planted in rows 
five feet apart, and one foot apart in the row. The berries are 
produced on wood a year old, and at the end of every season 
all the wood that has borne is cut away. It is not known how 
long the raspberry-bush will continue to bear, but probably 
ten years at the least. The largest raspberry-field in the state 
contains twenty acres. 

An excellent wme is made of raspberries, and some of the 
Oakland people have gone into the business, hoping to derive 
a large profit from it. The berries are bruised, a gallon of 
water is poured on for three pounds of berries, and after three 
days the berries are pressed; three pounds of sugar are added 
for every gallon of the liquid, which is then put into barrels, 
and allowed to stand, with the bung open, until active fermen- 
tation has ceased — a period varying from five weeks to two 
months — and the wine is ready for use, though the longer it 
stands the better it becomes. Soft water is better than hard 
for putting on the berries, and hard water should not be used 
without boiling. An acre of raspberries will yield six hundred 
gallons of wine, which, if well made, is worth a dollar or a dol- 
lar and a half a gallon at wholesale. The raspberry cultivated 
at Oaldand is the Fastolf variety. The fruit ripens during June 
and July. 

The Lawton blackberry is also cultivated about Oakland. 
The rows are from six to eight feet apart, and the plants from 
four to six feet apart in the row. The yield of the blackberry 
and the cost of picking are about the same with the raspberry, 
but the price is much higher, the blackberry selling at whole- 



AGKICULTUUE. 209 

sale ill 1861 at twenty -five cents per pound. It is in the mar- 
ket from the first of July to the middle of September. Wine 
is made from the blackberry in the same manner as fi'om the 
raspberry, and sometimes the two berries are combined to- 
gether. 

§ 154. Ornamental Shrubs. — Professional gardeners say that 
California is better fitted by Nature than any part of Europe 
or the Atlantic slopes to have beautiful ornamental gardens. 
Our shrubs are more numerous, grow larger, remain green 
longer, and have a longer blooming season, tlian those of other 
states. The mayo and nialva trees, the rose, the daisy, the 
pansy, the oelyssum, the clyanthus punceus, the flowering ver- 
bena, ,the hollyhock, and the calla or Ethiopian lily, bloom here 
in the open air every month in the year. The honeysuckle, 
metrosideros, and myrtle, bloom from March to December; 
the geranium and snow-ball from April to October ; the violet 
from October to May ; the pittosporum from November to 
March ; the spireas and flowering almond from March to June ; 
and the camelia japonica from January to May, all in the open 
air. Persons at all familiar with the cultivation of these flow- 
ers in New York will observe that the blooming season here 
is, on an average, fully double its length there. Not only do 
they bloom in the open air, but they retain their leaves through 
most of the winter months, so that our gardens are never bare 
and cheerless as they are in the Atlantic winters. I have seen 
a rosebush bearing twenty full-blown roses in January, and 
that in the open air, with no assistance from artificial heat, and 
no protection save that of clambering up a brick wall on the 
southern side of an unoccupied house. Our roses are larger as 
well as more abundant than in the Eastern states, but their 
perfume is not so strong. 

A marked feature of our ornamental gardening is our ability 
to cultivate in the open air many plants which can only be pre- 
served in this latitude east of the llocky Mountains under glass 
and with the aid of artificial heat. These plants are too nu- 
merous to be all specially named here ; but some of the more 
10* 



210 RESOUKCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

important are the orange, camelia japonica, laurastinns, myo- 
porum, ericas, casuarina, daphne, eucalyptus, nietrosideros, and 
thirty varieties of acacia, twenty of them from Australia. It 
might be almost said that we have no hot-houses in the state, 
but only green-houses, for it is scarcely ever necessary to make 
a fire, even to protect the most delicate of tropical plants. 

Our climate is very favorable to the growth of evergreens, 
especially to those strange and beautiful ones from Australia, 
with the gi-aceful growth and the- brilliant, feathery foliage. 
Two of the most striking features of our ornamental horticul- 
ture are the malva and mayo trees. The former, a native of 
the southern part of this state, grows to be about fifteen feet 
high, continues green throughout the year, and is always cov- 
ered with abundant foliage and a wreath of large crimson flow- 
ers, resembling the flowers of the crimson hollyhock in size, 
shape, and color. The mayo-tree is an evergreen, originally 
from Chile, always brilliant with abundant yellow flowers. 

Among the most common and beautiful creeping vines 
grown in California is the Australian bean, which has a dense, 
bright, evergreen foliage, and abundant flowers throughout the 
year. It climbs strings, and is therefore well suited to shade 
verandas and to grow in the front of j^orticoes. 

The rose, the honeysuckle, the veronica, the oleander, the 
laurastinus, the euonimus japonica, and the verbenas — espe- 
cially the lemon verbena — may safely be said to make twice as 
much wood in a year as they do on the Atlantic coast. The 
geraniums in San Francisco are almost trees. Rose-sprouts 
often grow twenty feet in a season, and other plants in propor- 
tion. There is scarcely any tree or shrub cultivated in the At- 
lantic states which does not thrive equally as well here, except 
the weeping willow. 

California has thus far furnished very little for our gardens. 
There are many singular plants in our mountains, but few 
have found favor with our gardeners. The malva and the ce- 
anothus are the chief ornamental shrubs, indigenous in Califor- 
nia, adopted for cultivation. 



AGRICULTUBB. 211 

"We have not yet had time to produce many ornamental 
gardens ; but I tiiink the time is not far distant when no place 
in the world will, within so small a district, have so many fine 
gardens as the valleys round San Francisco Bay. 

§ 155. Pests of the Farmer. — Certain "pests" of the farmer 
must be mentioned here, among Avhlch are the spermophile, 
gopher, grasshopper, locust, grape-bug, orange-bug, army- 
worm, Canada thistle, mullen, dock, fern, and so forth. Of 
the spermophiles and their habits I have spoken in the chapter 
on the zoology of the state. The amount of mischief which 
they do is very great. The most effective means of driving 
them off are poisons, chiefly strychnine and phosphorus. About 
a drachm of strychnine is dissolved in a quart of whiskey, and 
then the solution is poured over dry wheat in such quantity, 
that the surface of the liquid is just on a level Avith the top of 
the jrrain. In the course of twelve hours the wheat absorbs 
all the liquor, and a few grains may then be thrown in front 
of every squirrel-hole. When phosphorus is to be used, the 
wheat is soaked in boiling water until it is soft, when the wa- 
ter is drawn off*, and the wheat in a pan is put in or over boil- 
ing water to keep it near the boiling heat. A stick of phos- 
phorus three inches long is put into the hot wheat, melts in ten 
minutes, and the wheat is stirred about well, so that the melted 
phosphorus will touch every grain. The wheat is then poured 
upon some bran in which it is rolled so that every kernel may 
be covered, and the grain is ready for its purposes of destruc- 
tion. A couple of kernels will kill a squirrel ; and if a cat eats 
the squirrel, it will kill him ; and if a raven picks out the eyes 
of the cat, he will die too : and such a progressive destruction 
has been observed more than once in California. 

The gopher is more readily caught with traps than the sper- 
mophile. In the chapter on zoology I have described the 
trench used for keeping gophers out of orchards and gardens, 
and for catching them. Several traps are in common use, but 
it is not easy to describe them ; so I will not attempt it. 

The grasshoppers are the greatest pests of the farmer in 



212 RESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

California, and I fear thai \> e have not yet seen the worst of 
them, thoui^rh several times durincr the last fil\een years thev 
have eaten every green thing within large districts. They 
come in millions upon millions, and darken the air, moving for- 
ward at the rate of a mile or two a day, and leaving no grass 
or leaf behind them. Grains, grass, weeds, kitchen vegetables, 
and fruit-trees, ai*e aUke eaten bare of every green particle. 
Grasshoppers are abundant in countries where the summers are 
dry, the winters warm, and the vegetation vigorous ; and if a 
large extent of land be uncultivated, they will occasionally be 
so numerous as to destroy every green thing. They are bred 
in the hills of Calilornia, and after dry winters descend into 
the valleys, usually content to eat the wild grasses, but some- 
times attack the cultivated fields. There is no known method 
of killinc: them after thev have entered a field, or of driviua: 
them away from it ; but they may be kept out by digging a 
trench, putting straw in it, with some moist straw on top, and 
then setting fire to it. The grasshoppers do not like the fire 
and smoke, and will try to avoid them. 

Under the head of the grape and the orange, I have spoken 
of the bugs which infest them. The army-worm has been seen 
in California, but has done little damage as yet. The curculio 
and weevil are not known in the state. The Canada thistle, 
the mullen, and the dock, have been introduced, but have not 
yet given much trouble. 

§ 156. 2\eat Cattle. — California has 1,100,000 neat cattle, 
900,000 sheep, and 150,000 horses, nearly all bred in the open 
air and open plains, and fed only on wild grasses. The system 
of breeding live-stock difiers much in California from that 
wliich pn■e^ ails in the Atlantic states, where cattle are kept in 
fields and stables all the time, and fed with cultivated food. 
Here domestic animals grow more rapidly, and reach their full 
development earlier, than east of the Sierra Xevada. 

§ 157. SjXDiish Cattle. — Most of our neat cattle are of the 
old Califoruian breed, brought hither by the Spanish mission- 
aries irom Mexico, about 1770. At what time tlieir stock 



AGRICULTURE. 213 

came originally to Mexico is not precisely known, but without 
doubt it was in the seventeenth century, soon after tlie con- 
quest by Cortes, and they must have been imported from 
Spain. They are called " Spanish cattle." In Mexico, as sub- 
sequently in California, they were allowed to run almost wild, 
and they took something of the appearance of wild animals. 
They have nearly the same range of colors as the neat cattle 
of Europe ; but mouse, dun, and brindle colors — almost infal- 
lible signs of " scrub" blood — are more frequent ; and the deep 
red, fine cream-color, and delicate mottling of deej) red and 
w^hite, found only in animals of high blood, are entirely w^ant- 
ing. Their legs are long and thin, their noses sharp, their 
forms graceful, their heads high, their horns long, slender, and 
wide-spread ; and they have a duskiness about the eyes and 
nostrils similar to that of the deer, betwx'en which animal and 
a young Spanish cow there ave many points of resemblance. 
The general carriage of the Spanish cow is like that of a wild 
animal : she is quick, uneasy, restless, frequently on the look- 
out for danger, snuffing the air, moving watli a high and elastic 
trot, and excited at the sight of a man, particularly if afoot, 
when she will often attack him. In some counties it is, for this 
reason, unsafe to go about on foot. The native Californians 
are always mounted, and to these the cattle are accustomed ; 
but a man afoot is considered to be a dangerous animal, de- 
serving of the same treatment with wolves and coyotes. The 
Spanish cow is small, does not fatten readily, produces little 
milk, and her meat is not so tender and juicy as that of Amer- 
ican cattle. 

The breeding of neat cattle was almost the only business of 
the country previous to the American conquest, and they were 
killed for their hides and tallow, which were the chief exports. 
The meat went to enrich the land ; there was too much of it 
to be eaten. The breeding of cattle, being the chief occupa- 
tion of the Californians, determined their mode of life, the 
structure of their society, and the size of their ranches. No- 
body wanted to own less than a square league (four thousand 



214 RESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

four liiiDclred and thirtv-eigbt acres) of land; and the govern 
meut granted it away without charge, in tracts varviug from 
one to eleven leagues, to anybody who would imdertake to 
erect a house and put a himdred head of cattle on the place. 
It was common for one man to own five thousand head of cat- 
tle. The cows were kept for breeding, and the steers were 
regularly killed as they reached the age of three or four years. 
All had the freedom of the country, and ranged where they 
pleased, except that several times a year every man collected 
his own upon his ranch. There was about one bull to fifty 
cows. Xo attempt was made to improve the breed, nor was 
any profit to be obtained from an improvement. Most of the 
ciilves were born about the beginning of the year, and in March 
the first rodeo was held. 

§ 158. Hodeos. — The word rodeo comes from the same root 
with "rotate," and means a surrounding, a gathering of all 
the cattle on a ranch, and the separation and removal of those 
belonging to other ranches. There are general and special 
rodeos. A rodeo may be for one ranch, or for several ; but 
every ranchero owning a large ranch and many cattle has his 
own rodeo. Every large ranchero must have at least one 
rodeo in the spring, and another in the fall. The general rodeo 
is held for the benefit of all the cattle-owners in the neighbor- 
hood ; the special rodeo is held for the benefit of some partic- 
nlar person or persons who desire an opportunity to remove 
their cattle from a ranch. Every owner of a rancho is required 
by law to give a. general rodeo every spring. 

When a general rodeo is to be held, the ranchero sends no- 
tice several days or weeks in advance to the cattle-owners in 
the vicinity; and in the cattle-districts the neighborhood ex- 
tends forty or fifty miles, for cattle will stray that distance. 
On the day appointed, the ranchero having selected some 
place where the cattle are to be collected, sends out his mount- 
ed vaqueros or herdsmen at daylight to drive the cattle to the 
appointed place, where they are gathered at ten o'clock. By 
that time, the interested rancheros with their vaqueros have 



AGRICULTURE. 215 

made their appearance, and are on tlie ground, all mounted, 
and prepared for the day's work. 

The ranchero who gives the rodeo is present to entertain his 
visitors, and his men are instructed to keep the cattle together. 
The herd may be veiy large. I have seen eight thousand head 
of cattle in a rodeo, forming a solid body about a quarter of a 
mile in diameter in every direction. The visiting rancheros 
who have come from the greatest distance are permitted to 
enter the mass first, select their cattle, and drive them out. 
Each man has a position chosen at a distance of half a mile or 
a mile, whither he drives his cattle ; and there are several men 
there mounted, to prevent them from returning to the main 
herd. When a ranchero sees one of his cows in the herd, he 
calls to a friend, and the two chase her out. She does not 
w4sh to go, and tries to hide herself among the other cattle. 
The horses, accustomed to the rodeo, soon recognize the cow 
that is to be parted out, and enjoy the work. They turn 
with every turn of hers, and she is soon tired and compelled 
to go out. If the cow be accompanied by a large unmarked 
calf, the latter is often caught with the lasso, thrown down, 
and then marked with the knife. While these rancheros are 
riding about among the herd and seeking their own, the cattle 
are driven by a few vaqueros belonging to the ranch so as to 
move about in a circular manner. As the cattle are thus 
moving round in one direction, the rancheros of the immediate 
neiojhborhood, whose time has not vet come for enterino: the 
centre of the rodeo, ride round in a direction contrary to the 
course of the herd, and thus are enabled to see them to more 
advantage than if they were standing still. After the ranche- 
ros from a distance have parted out all their cattle, those of the 
vicinity ride in, and the whole day is thus spent in racing and 
chasing after cattle. 

The man who gives the rodeo does not attempt to examine 
the cattle which are taken away. He takes it for granted that 
every one will drive off only his own animals. Sometimes sev- 
eral days are necessary to complete the general rodeo of a 



I 



216 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

ranch, and the work is continued from day to day until fin- 
ished. All the rodeos of a neighborhood are usually held in a 
regular and close connection. The rancheros from a distance, 
therefore, stay until they have attended all the rodeos in a 
district to which they suppose that any of their cattle have 
strayed ; and they are usually the guests of the man upon 
whose ranch the rodeo is given. 

When a cow is driven out, her calf follows. Every ran- 
cher© knows his cattle by the brand, which law and custom re- 
quire him to use. Of course, when a man has four or five thou- 
sand head of cattle, he cannot recognize them all by sight; he 
can only distinguish them by marks. He knows his cows by 
their brands, and his calves by their following the cows. 

The spring rodeos are the busiest seasons of the rancheros, 
and are for them the chief occasions of general meeting, exci- 
ting adventure, conversation, and festivity, in the course of the 
year. Frequently three or four hundred men will meet at these 
places, mounted on their best horses, and ready for fun. All 
the work of the rodeo is exciting. Lively scenes are enacting 
at every moment, and in every direction. Calves will try to 
get away from the herd, and escape to the hills. Cows which 
have been driven out will endeavor to get back. These must 
be chased by the horsemen. Frequently the lasso must be 
used. Many of tlie vaqueros are fond of showing their skill 
before so many spectators, and astonishing feats of horseman- 
ship are performed. 

When a ranchero returns from a rodeo, with his cattle which 
had strayed away, he drives them into his corral, and brands and 
marks his calves ; so that if they should return to their former 
range, he will know them the next year. If those that have been 
on other randies are too numerous to he branded and marked 
in one day, some of his vaqueros stay with them on horseback, 
and herd them until all can be marked. When a cow has be- 
come accustomed to a ranch, she likes to return to it. After all 
the calves are marked, the owner does not care much whither 
they go, provided that they do not stray beyond the limits of 



AGEICULTUEE. 217 

the ranches, tlie rodeos of which he attends. It is only in 
times of extraordinary scarcity of grass, that the rancheros are 
particular to drive the cattle of other owners off their lands. 

The rodeo season being over — that is, when the ranchero 
has all his cattle on his own ranch, and his alone — he com- 
mences the work of branding. His vaqueros drive about two 
hundred cows with their calves into the corral every morning, 
and two or three good vaqueros will brand these calves in a 
day. The vaqueros enter the corral with their horses, which 
they need when the calves are large and strong, for many of 
them are three and four months old. If the calf be small, the 
vaquero may be afoot to lasso him. One vaquero throws a reata 
over the calf's head, and another catches him by the leg ; they 
throw him down, and one holds him, while the other gets a 
hot branding-iron and burns the owner's mark upon its hip. 
Thus the work goes on from day to day, and from week to 
week, until every calf on the ranch is marked. 

§ 159. fronds. — ^The law requires that every horse and cow 
shall be branded, w^ith a brand belonging to their owner. The 
brand is made of iron, sometimes representing one or two let- 
ters, sometimes other arbitrary signs, such as a cross, a circle, 
a triangle, or any other design. The brand may be six inches 
long by four wide, and the thickness of the iron is about a 
third of an inch. There is an iron handle, with a wooden 
cross-piece at the end, so that the brand can be handled when 
hot, and held down firmly upon the prostrate calf, until the 
figure is indelibly burned into the skin. A copy of every brand 
must be burned upon leather, and deposited in the county re- 
corder's office. Every minor and servant on a ranch must use 
the bi-and of the owner of the ranch. The brand must be 
burned, under penalty, upon all horses and neat cattle, before 
the age of eigbteen months. The brand is burned upon the 
hip, and indicates ownership ; when the animal is sold, the 
brand is burned upon the shoulder, and indicates sale. The 
purchaser then puts his brand upon the hip ; and thus the skin 
of a Californian horse or cow contains the history of its owner- 



218 RESOUKCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

ship. Many of the brands are well known to the rancheros 
over a large portion of the state ; and by looking at the aui- 
mal, they will tell where it was born, and who have owned it 
at diflerent times. The hips and shoulders on both sides are 
often covered with brands. Sometimes the brands grow Avith 
the animals ; in other cases they remain nearly of their original 
size. A brand well burned into the skin is perceptible as long 
as the animal lives, though it grows less* and less distinct witn 
the advance of years. 

In the fall there is another season of rodeos, to brand such 
calves as may have escaped notice at the spring rodeos, or may 
have been too small to be branded. 

The rancheros sometimes have a mark in addition to their 
brand, such as slitting the ear or cutting a notch in the dew- 
lap. A drawing of the mark must be deposited in the county 
recorder's office. It is contrary to law to cut off the end of 
the ear, or to cut it on both sides so as to bring it to a point ; 
for those modes of marking would give opportunities to cut 
away the marks of other people. The bull-calves are usually 
altered at the rodeos, as well as branded and marked. The 
cattle on many ranches are touched only twice in their lives 
by the hand of man — first, when they are branded; and next, 
when they are slaughtered. 

§ 160. Early Maturity of Calif ornian Cows. — The cows 
calve almost invariably before they are two years old, frequent- 
ly before they are eighteen months, and sometimes before four- 
teen months. They generally arrive at maternity a year sooner 
than in the Atlantic states. It is said that suckling heifers 
have been seen to take the bull. The Spanish rancheros have 
eight or ten bulls to a hundred cows ; the Americans usually 
four or five. The calves suckle from six to ten months ; that 
is, from January or February, when they are born, until No- 
vember, when the pasturage is very scanty. The Spanish cows 
have small udders, and yield little milk ; and notwithstanding 
their great number m the country, butter, milk, and cheese 
were very rarely seen on the table previous to the coming of 



AGRICULTURE. 219 

the Americans. American cows are the only ones used for the 
dairy, but many of them are now kept also for breeding alone, 
and, like the Spanish cows, they are never milked. 

§ 161. Corral and Reata. — The corral is an important part 
of all cattle-ranchos, and on many of them it is the only enclo- 
sure. It is a pen, from thirty to fifty yards square, surrounded 
by a high, strong fence. It is used whenever horses or cattle 
are to be branded. 

The reata^ used for lassoing, is a rawhide rope, about five- 
eighths of an inch in diameter and thirty yards long. It is 
made of four strips of cowhide, from which the hair has been 
scraped ; and after plaiting, it is greased and dragged along 
on the ground after a saddle, to render it pliable. Rawhide 
is better than any other material, because it has just the proper 
weight and stifiuess for the purpose. A running noose, which 
slips very easily, is arranged at one end. When the reata is 
to be used, the noose is made from four to six feet long ; one 
side of the noose and the reata just outside are taken in the 
right hand, so that while in the hand the noose will not slip ; 
the remainder of the reata is held coiled up in the left hand, 
ready to be let go. The vaquero swings the noose round his 
head, in such a way as to keep it open ; and when he has a 
good swing, he lets go, and away it will fly, its w^hole length. 
If it catches the object aimed at, the noose draws tight. It is 
not an uncommon thing for a vaquero to catch a cow at a dis- 
tance of thirty feet, while she and his horse are both running 
rapidly ; but usually he will get within fifteen or twenty feet, 
if he can, before throwing his reata. A good vaquero, stand- 
ing in front of another man, can push tlie latter back, and the 
moment his foot leaves the ground, throw a reata under it, 
and thus lasso him by the leg. When cattle or horses are to 
be branded, they must be thrown down ; and this is'generally 
accomplished by catching the head with one reata, and a hind- 
leg with another. 

§ 162. Occasional Starvation. — Nineteen out of twenty of 
the cattle of California never get any food, save such as grows 



220 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

indigenously in the open country, and they always suffer for 
it. From March to July the pasture is abundant and ex- 
cellent, and the cattle are fat ; from July to October, in ordi- 
nary years, the grasses and clovers, though dry and brown, are 
nutritious, and the cattle still remain in good condition ; but 
from October to Januaiy they grow lean rapidly, and almost 
every year a considerable number of them die by starvation. 
Either the grass may be all consumed, or it may be deprived 
of its nutriment. The first case happens when the grass is 
very scanty, because of a small fall of rain during the winter ; 
the second occurs when a heavy rain, lasting a day or two, 
comes before N'ew Year's day, and is followed by cold dry 
weather. The rain takes away the palatable and nutritious 
qualities of the old grass, and the cold and dry weather pre- 
vents the starting of the new grass, and between the two the 
cattle suffer. In 1856, seventy thousand head of cattle died in 
Los Angeles county alone by starvation, one-third of the entire 
liumber m the county. The state has not one large cattle-ranch 
surrounded by fence, and therefore, if a man owns good pas- 
ture land, the cattle of other people come and eat the grass, 
and later in the season his own must suffer. It is impossible 
for the vaqueros to drive away the strange cattle, because they 
enter the ranch on every side every day, and if the grass be 
much better than on adjoining ranches, they will, if driven 
away one day, return the next. The proper and profitable 
method of managing an extensive cattle-ranch, is to have it all 
fenced in and divided ofi* into a few large fields, in which the 
cattle could be pastured at different seasons. It would also be 
a source of profit to have hay for them or green alfalfa in the 
early winter, so that there would be no danger of a reduction 
to skin and bone : for it costs thrice as much to replace as to 
preserve a pound of flesh. Spanish cattle, when slaughtered 
between September and February, are usually very thin, and 
in the Atlantic States it would be grossly impolitic to send 
such animals to the market. 

§ 163. Imported Cattle, — The great majority of the cattle 



AGEIOtTLTURE. 221 

in the state are of pure Spanish blood, but there is a consider- 
able number of American cows and half-bloods, which are 
constantly increasing in number, Avhile the Spanish cattle are 
decreasing. Most of the American cattle are in the Sacra- 
mento basin and the coast valleys north of Monterey, while 
along the southern coast they are very few in number. 

During the last four or five years about seventy-five pure- 
blood Durhams, twenty-five Devons, and four Ayrshire bulls and 
cows, have been imported across the Isthmus of Panama. The 
freight on the steamer and railroad, from New York to San 
Francisco, for a bull or cow, is two himdred and seventy-five 
dollars. The food is carried free of charge, but the owner must 
find a person to feed and take care of the animal during the 
voyage. Some of these imported animals are of the best English 
stock. The better the blood the larger the beeves grow, and 
the more readily and rapidly they fatten. The Spanish cattle are 
too uneasy ; they run about so much that they lose flesh. The 
half breed American cattle are more quiet, the full-blood Ameri- 
can still more quiet, and the Durham the best of all. But as our 
beef cattle get no food save such as they pick up in the open 
country, I doubt whether it will pay to import these pure-blood 
Durhams to improve the breed. The excellence of the Durham 
is caused by care in breeding, protection against the weather, and 
an abundance of good food ; and the excellence cannot be main- 
tained without a continuance of the same system of manage- 
ment. The Durham will, in a few generations, cease to be a 
Durham, if he gets no food save such as he can pick up in the 
valleys and hills ; but if carefully fed, he will, of course, do as 
well here as elsewhere. It is said that the Durham needs suc- 
culent food ; if so, the blood will soon degenerate on the dry 
grasses of California. The Devon stock, which has been praised 
by the importers of it as peculiarly fitted to thrive on our in- 
digenous grasses, has not found much favor. Our dairy cows 
are the only ones which are well taken care of; and therefore 
the Ayrshire blood is really more needed, and likely to be 
better preserved, than either the Durham or Devon. Roots 



222 KESOUKC^S OF CALIFORNIA. 

are seldom cultivated for cattle ; hay, barley, and wlieat-bran, 
are used for feeding them when kept in the yard. Beeves are 
never stall-fed in California. 

§ 164. Dairies. — The chief dairy districts of the state are 
the valleys in the vicinity of the bay of San Francisco. The 
business is very profitable, but requires a considerable capital. 

The climate near the coast is very favorable for making 
butter and cheese. 

In 1860, according to the assessors' reports, Santa Clara 
county produced 220,000 lbs. of butter and 300,000 lbs. of 
cheese; Marin, 226,000 lbs. of butter and 170,000 lbs. of 
cheese; Sonoma, 220,000 lbs. of butter and 103,000 lbs. of 
cheese; Sacramento, 148,000 lbs. of butter and 122,000 lbs. of 
cheese ; Yuba, 92,000 lbs. of butter and 5,745 lbs. of cheese ; 
and Alameda, 70,000 lbs. of butter and 103,000 lbs. of cheese. 

§ 165. Spcmish Horses. — California has about one hundred 
and fifty thousand horses, of which about one-third are Ameri- 
can ; one-third wild Spanish ; and one-third tame Spanish. 
The Spanish horses are of the old stock imported, sent early in 
the sixteenth century from Spain to Mexico, and thence brought 
to California about eighty years ago. Like the neat cattle, the 
Spanish horses run wild, and partake, to some extent, of the 
wild nature. They show their base blood by their colors — 
mouse color, dull duns of various shades, and calico color, or 
mixtures of white with red or black, in nuaierous large spots 
or blotches, are common ; while chestnut, bright sorrel, blood- 
bay, and dappled gray, are very rare among them. They are 
quick, tough, healthy, and unsurpassable for the uses of the 
rider and the vaquero; but small, lacking in weight, strength, 
and beauty, and unfitted for the heavy, steady work of the 
plough, cart, or wagon. They are wanting in the dociUty, 
kindly disposition and steadiness of the well-bred horse ; and 
they have little of that kind of sense which leads an American 
horse to be quiet and gentle, even in circumstances strange to 
him. For California, as it was in 1845, there were no better 
horses than the Spanish-Mexican. They have a wonderful tough- 



AGKICTJLTTTEE. 223 

ncss, and some of their exploits in the way of travelling are un- 
surpassed in the annals of the turf. A number of instances are 
on record where Californian horses have carried a rider one 
hundred miles in a day, and that with no food save grass. 
Sixty miles a day is not an uncommon ride, nor is it considered 
a severe one. Fremont, on one occasion, rode four hundred 
miles in four days, riding different horses, but driving them 
before him from the beginning to the end of the journey. 

More than half of the brood-mares of the state are wild 
Spanish ; that is, they live entirely in the open plain, are un- 
broken, and many of them have never been touched save when 
they were to be branded. They are in bands called manadas^ 
numbering from thirty to sixty mares, which are under the 
guidance of one stallion or garanon. He knows every one of 
his band, keeps them together, conducts them to what he 
considers the best pastures, and drives away geldings, stallions, 
mules, and whatever animals he may dislike. When avaquero 
tries to drive the manada into a corral for the purpose of catch- 
ing some of the band, the garanon will frequently divide them 
and scatter them about, and render it impossible for the vaquero 
to get them together ; for while he drives in one place, the 
stallion is equally busy at another, and the mares fear his teeth 
and heels as much as the swinging reata of the horseman. The 
garanon is usually from five to nine years of age. He guards 
his manada with the most jealous care. It sometimes hap- 
pens that one garaiion tries to take away a mare from the 
band of another, and then a fight ensues, in which the weaker 
has to suffer a severe biting and kicking, and then lose the ob- 
ject of the battle too. The manada keeps together for year 
after year, but when it gets too large, the vaquero will divide 
it and give a portion to the charge of another garanon. All the 
mares foal before they are three years old, whereas in the 
Atlantic States they seldom foal until a year later. They also 
breed more regularly than elsewhere, for when mares are kept 
in stables, they frequently pass seasons without breeding. 
The foals are branded at the age of three or four months, and 



224 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

are weaned at the age of eiglit or ten months. The fillies con- 
tinue to run with the manada, and become part of it. The 
colts are altered when branded, and continue to run with the 
manada until they are three or four years of age, when they 
are bi'oken and put into the caballada^ or herd of broken horses. 
The Mexicans never broke their mares, and considered it dis- 
creditable and a mark of great poverty to ride one. 

§ 166. Horse-h'eaking. — The Mexican system of breaking 
horses is peculiar. They are broken only to the saddle ; for 
horses were never used before wagons by the Spanish-Califor- 
nians. The horse having run free all his life, is too wild to be 
caught without a lasso, or to be approached at first while he is 
on his feet. He is therefore caught by the neck with one reata, 
by a hind-foot with another, and then thrown down by pulling 
the reatas in different directions. A vaquero goes to the horse 
as he lies down and puts a jdquima^ or a kind of halter, on his 
head. The jaquima is provided with a piece of leather, which 
can be pulled over the eyes so as to blind the horse, but it is 
first lifted to let him see. The reatas are taken' from the 
neck and leg of the prostrate horse, and a long rope having 
been fastened to the jaquima, he is allowed to rise. This is 
the first time he has been haltered and he dislikes the restraint, 
but he exerts himself in vain to get loose. After he has tired 
himself in vain efforts, the vaquero goes up for the purpose of 
pulling down the blind. The horse is terrified at so near an 
approach of a man, and trembles with excitement. If he pulls 
back hard the vaquero sees there is little danger, and slowly 
advancing and putting his hand to the blind pulls it down over 
the horse's eyes. But if the horse stand up, it is probable that 
he will rear up when the vaquero comes near, or strike at him 
with a fore-foot. Such animals are very dangerous, and are 
usually allowed to tire themselves by standing without food, 
or else they are drawn up to a fence or tree, behind which the 
vaquero can protect himself. So soon as the blind is down, 
the horse is perfectly quiet. He can be rubbed, and saddled, 
and mounted without a motion. The first thing after blind- 



AGRICULTUEE. 225 

ing is to put a saddle on liiin. It is fas.'^^ned well, the blind is 
raise^r, and the full length of the rope given to him. He does 
not understand the saddle. It may be a carnivorous beast for 
all he knows. He is terrified at it.- He jumps, and snorts, and 
kicks, rears and pitches, throws himself down, worries himself 
out, and falls into an agony of despair. After an hour or so 
of such work, the vaquero advances again, puts down the 
blind, and the horse stands trembling with fear and exhaus- 
tion. He is now to be ridden. The rope is fastened under the 
chin, so that it can be used for a bridle-rein ; the horse's ears 
are pushed down under the upper part of the jaquima, so that 
he shall be deaf as well as blind; the saddle-girth is tightened, 
and the rider mounts. Over the saddle he has a second girth, 
which is loose enough to allow him to get the point of his knee, 
bent at right angles, under it. This girth ties him upon the horse. 
The more he presse's the knee outward, the tighter the girth 
holds him ; whereas by turning his knees inward and straight- 
ening his legs, he can be free in an instant. Having put his 
knees under the girth (he does not care for the stirrups and 
cannot use them) he reaches forward, takes the ears out from 
under the jaquima, and raises the blind. The horse, as soon as 
he sees the man on his back, is stricken with a new terror. He 
immediately commences to jump stiff-legged. He springs up 
into the air and comes down on his fore-feet with his legs stiff. 
This is the way in which horses try to shake off panthers, and 
they resort to the same method with men. The shock would 
be severe if the man were not tied down to the saddle, but he 
moves with the horse and is not hurt with the shock. Some- 
times a horse will jump thus for hour after hour, and the rider 
is very well satisfied, for there is no danger in the jumping, and 
it is very tiresome to the animal. Some horses, after jumping 
for a few minutes, will commence to run. To this the rider 
makes no opposition, but practises the horse with the reins to 
accustom him to guidance. The most dangerous horses are 
those whi(;h rear up and fall backward. In such case the 
vaquero must be ready to throw off the girth from his knees, 
11 



226 KESOFRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

and alight upon his feet as the horse foils. After riding for a 
couple of hours, the vaquero reaches for\yard, pushes the blind 
down over the horse's eyes and dismounts. To dismount with- 
out first putting down the blind would be very dangerous, for 
the horse would probably kick him. He takes oif the saddle, 
hoists the blind, ties him to a fence or a tree with his head up, 
and selves him neither food nor water. The next morning; he 
is very stiff and hungry. The vaquero does not feed him, but 
pulls down the blind, puts on the saddle, mounts him again, 
and the scenes of the previous day are re-enacted, though the 
jumping is less furious. After a couple of hours of exercise, 
the horse is tied where he can get water and grass. Every day 
he is ridden. In five or six days he quits jumping. In three 
months the blind is laid aside. In four months a bit is put in 
his mouth. This is strange to him, and he jumps sliff-legged. 
If the first bit used is American, he will jump again when the 
harsher Spanish bit is used. When any thing is wrong he j umps 
stifi'-legged. During the first month or two his nose will be 
very sore where the jaquima or halter crosses it, caused by the 
pulling of the halter in holding and guiding the animal. At the 
end of a couple of months he learns to follow the guidance of 
the jaquima almost as readily as afterward the bit. After he 
has been ridden daily for six months, he has become tame and 
quiet, and he commences to fatten up again ; for during the 
first three or four weeks he worries liimself so much, with his 
vain plungings, that he loses flesh rapidly. The Californian 
horse, when once broken, is kindly in disposition. He rarely 
bites or kicks, no matter how roughly he may be used. 

After having been broken to the saddle, he must be taught 
the uses of the reata. The vaquero always carries his reata 
with him, and the horse soon learns to see it swinging about 
the rider's head. The reata is first thrown at small calves and 
then at larger ones, and the horse gradually learns that he can 
best hold a lassoed animal by presenting his head toward it, 
and bracing himself back with his fore-feet. The reata is fast- 
ened to the horn of a saddle, strong enough to hold a bull 



AGEICULTUEE* 22 1 

The horse learns to watch tlie reata ; if it catches, he slackens 
his pace, or stops suddenly ; if it does not catch, he continues 
at full speed, while the vaquero pulls up the reata and prepares 
to throw it again. The saddle and bridle are both peculiar, 
and necessary to the trade of the vaquero. The saddle-tree, or 
fuste.) is made of four pieces of wood, two of Avhich are longi- 
tudinal and rest on the sides of the horse ; one forms a high 
back ; and the fourth is a fork, which rises in a large strong 
horn. The pieces are strongly fastened together, and the 
whole framework is covered with wet rawhide, which shrinks 
when dry, and contributes much to its strength. A good fuste 
is stout enough to hold the strongest bull. The girth is four 
inches wide, and is made of a number of little ropes of horse- 
hair, connecting two iron rings four inches in diameter. One 
of tliese rings is fastened on the right side of the saddle, by 
straps running over the front and back of the fuste ; and a 
similar ring is fastened in like manner on the left side of the 
fuste. In this latter ring is a rawhide strap three feet long. 
When the saddle is to be fastened, this strap runs through the 
ring at the loose end of the girth, then througli the upper ring, 
then down to the girth ring again ; and the vaquero pulls, and 
nsually draws so tightly that the wide girth cuts into the 
horse's belly and evidently displaces its contents. When a 
vaquero is preparing for a day of lassoing, there is no danger 
that the saddle will slip. The girth has no buckle about it, 
and is made wide to give it strength and to prevent it from 
hurting the horse. It is placed farther back than in American 
saddles, and rarely cuts the skin, just behind the fore-legs. 
Sometimes in lassoing, the animal caught will get off sideways 
from the horse, and the saddle must be so firmly in its place, 
that it cannot move ; and sometimes the vaquero will drop his 
reata after having caught his cow or horse, and then while his 
horse is going at full speed he must reach down, supporting 
himself with one hand on the horn of the saddle and with the 
other seize the reata. For such feats, the girth must not be 
loose. The stirruj)s are of wood, about three inches wide, and 



228 KESOUKCES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

are covered in front with pieces of tliick leather, called topa' 
deras^ which prevent the feet from slipping through. The 
fiiste is usually covered by large flaps of leather called niochilaSj 
and along the stu'rup-straps are pieces of leather called suda- 
deras^ to protect the legs of the rider from the sweat of the 
horse's side. Cruppers and martingales are never used by the 
Spauish-Califoruians. The bridle is so made that a hard pull 
on the rein hurts the horse, and a severe jerk will throw him 
back on his haunches. The bit has an arm projecting about 
two inches up in the mouth. On ordinary occasions this arm 
lies flat on the tongue, but when the rein is pulled it rises and 
presses against the roof of the mouth. The slightest pull, 
therefore, on a Spanish bridle is felt by the horse, and he will 
stop instantaneously, though at full speed, if the reins be jerked 
severely. It may be cruel to the horse, but it is very conve- 
nient to the rider, and necessary to the vaquero. 

The common gait of the Califoruiau horse under the saddle 
is the gallop. He never paces or racks, and rarely tries a 
sharp trot, but rests himself with a walk or a slow trot. His 
gallop has an easy motion which does not tire the rider in fifty 
miles. He has an excellent speed for a race of a quarter a mile, 
but he cannot run two-mile heats with the thoroughbred, though 
for a gallop of a hundred miles he has probably no superior. 

Many of the Californian horses have of late years been bro- 
ken to the wagon and the plough, and they do very well for 
fiirm work, though not equal to American horses. 

§ 167. Jjlood-horses. — The American horses, that is the com- 
mon stock of horses brought from the Atlantic States within 
the last twelve years, and their ottspring, are large, fine animals, 
not so healthy and tough as the Californian horses, but larger, 
more active, stronger and more handsome in shape and color. 

A large number of stallions and mares of fine blood have 
been imported, including about fifty thoroughbreds or English 
racers, two dozen Morgans or American trotters, and a dozen 
Clydesdale and Flemish, or heavy cart and truck horses. Some 
of these horses are valued as high as ten thousand dollars 



AGKICULTURE. 229 

apiece. The Clydesdale and Flemish are considered the most 
valuable for crossing with the Califoniian mares, the oifspring 
being large, strong farm-horses, worth twice as much in the 
market as the pure Californian. The thoroughbred horses in 
California are of the purest blood, and some of them have few 
superiors in speed in any country. 

§ 1G8. Jlides. — Nearly all the farm w'ork of California, 
where draught animals are necessary, is done with horses. 
Mules are too dear and oxen are too slow. A great number 
of mules and horses are used in packing merchandise in those 
districts where there are no good w^agon-roads. For the or- 
dinary uses of the farm the mule is preferable to the horse, 
being longer-lived, more healthy, not so much injured physi- 
cally or morally by ill-treatment, and contented with much 
cheaper and simpler food. But the mule is not considered 
handsome, and the small farmer wants a horse which he can 
ride, and with which he can take his family out, so he never 
gets a mule. Mules are now used on very few farms, but I 
think they will gradually gain in favor. Few mules are bred 
in the state at present, but there are some excellent jacks in 
Contra Costa county and in the San Joaquin valley. 

§ 169. Camels. — Some camels have been introduced into 
CaUfornia, but they are as yet few in number, and have been 
here but a short time. Our experience with them is therefore 
small, and we do not know what value they are to have in the 
future. They a^e healthy, increase, thrive on our wild pas- 
tures, are strong and active, climb our rugged mountains as 
well as horses or mules, carry loads of one thousand pounds 
each, go three or four days at a time without w^ater, and are 
readily managed ; but they have not been tried in a regular 
business way, and such trial is necessary before we can tell 
what they are to be. 

§ 170. Sheep. — The climate of California is peculiarly favor- 
able to the growth, increase, and health of the sheep. Our 
mild winters permit them to grow throughout the year ; and 
it IS an accepted principle i.mong those familiar with the sub- 



230 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

ject, tliat a slieep, born and bred in California, is, at two years 
of age, usually as large and heavy as one of three years, born 
and bred in the Atlantic States. The ewes produce twins and 
triplets more frequently here than east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. The health of the herds is better. IRo fatal disease has 
ever preA^ailed to any serious extent. The " scab" exists in 
many herds, but in a mild form, and few have died of it. It is 
the general opinion of sheep-breeders that the sheep bred in 
California will produce more wool than those of other states. 
The heaviest unwashed fleece on record, is that of " Grizzly," 
a French Merino buck. It was fourteen months old, weighed 
forty-two pounds, and was sheared by Flint, Bixby & Co., in 
Monterey county, in 1859. 

Sheep in California are never kej^t imder shelter, and except 
a few of fine blood, seldom get any food save such as they 
can pick up on the 025en hills and plains. Sometimes lambs 
are lost with cold, but this is very rare when they are weU 
managed. At night the herds are driven into corrals or pens, 
to protect them against the coyotes, and to keep them from 
being lost. On the large sheep ranches, one herdsman is em- 
ployed for a thousand sheep. There are a few shepherd-dogs 
in the state, some brought from Australia, others from Scot- 
land. The word " corral" is understood by these dogs, and 
when they hear it, they immediately drive the herd to the 
corral. At the sight of a wolf, they hastily collect the sheep 
into a dense body, with their tails out and the lambs in the 
centre. If a sheep turns his head out, the dog bites his knees 
and makes him tm-n about. The dog seems to understand 
that the wolf cannot do much harm by biting the rump of a 
sheep, but would soon kill it after catching its throat. 

In most other sheep countries, tlie sheep-breeder is at great 
disadvantages as compared with California ; the land is dear ; 
it must be cultivated ; the sheep must be fed by hand every 
day during a considerable part of the year ; the herds must be 
imder shelter in the winter ; four or five men are required, on 
an average, to attend to a thousand sheep ; the herds are not 



AGRICULTURE. 231 

BO healthy, do not increase so rapidly, do not grow so large 
within the first two years, and do not produce so much wool. 
The land of the sheep ranches in California is not worth more 
than five dollars per acre, on an average probably not more 
than three dollars. It follows that sheep-breeding should be 
very profitable here, and so it is. The ewes, when properly 
taken care of, Inive lambs before they are a year old — increase 
one hundred per cent, every year. The cost of keeping large 
herds is variously estimated from thirty-seven to fifty cents 
per head annually, exclusive of the interest of the land used 
for pasturage. The wool of a good sheep will pay twice the 
cost of keeping it ; and the avooI and lamb together, of a fine- 
blood ewe, are worth eight or ten times the cost. It is the 
present custom to sell the wethers for mutton when a year old, 
but this is bad policy, save with the poorest sheep. 

The old missions had large herds of sheep, but after the 
management of those large establishments was taken from 
the priests and given to civil officers, in 1833, the sheep were 
neglected and most of them were killed. Twenty years 
later very few were left in the state, but there was a demand 
for mutton, so large herds were driven from New Mexico. 
These Avere a very poor stock, but they were for a long time 
the only sheep that could be had, and they now form the great 
majority of the sheep in the state. The first attempt to breed 
sheep as an exclusive business in California, since the Ameri- 
can conquest, was commenced in 1853, by a poor man wdio 
had nothing save nine hundred ewes ; and they mcreased so 
rapidly and proved so profitable, that now, if report be true, 
he has ten thousand sheep, sixteen thousand acres of land, and 
other property to the value of one hundred thousand dollars. 
Within the last three years many sheep of fine blood have been 
imported, and these will gradually swallow up the Mexican 
stock. The imported kinds ai'e American, Southdown, Aus- 
tralian Merino, French Merino, and Spanish Merino. Of the 
two latter varieties there are few save bucks. The prices of 
sheep fluctuate, but the relative prices of the different breeds 



232 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

remain about the same. Thus when a Mexican evre is worth 
about three dollars, an American is worth five dollars, a half- 
Merino six dollars, a Southdown six dollars, and an Australian 
Merino twelve dollars. The Mexican sheep produces on an 
average two pounds of wool per year, worth from five to 
seven cents per pound ; the American four pounds, worth from 
fifteen to twenty cents ; the half-Merino six pounds, worth 
from eighteen to twenty-four cents; the Southdown five pounds, 
worth twenty or twenty-one cents; the Austrahan Merino 
seven pounds, worth twenty or twenty-one cents. These 
weights indicate the weights of the unwashed fleeces, and the 
prices paid in this market for unwashed wool. The Californian 
wool, especially that grown in the southern part of the state, 
is filled with grease, dust, and sand. In one case, a fleece 
weighing sixteen pounds was reduced by washing to six 
]iounds. The finer the wool, and thefiirther south it is grown, 
the greater the proportion of dirt. The wool grown in the 
northern part of the Sacramento valley, is cleaner than that 
of Alameda county, and that of the latter place is superior to 
the wool of San Luis Obispo. There are a few Chinese sheep in 
the state, and much value was for a time attached to them, 
because the ewes very frequently produce triplets, but it re- 
quires a good ewe to suckle two lambs well, and twins are 
sufiiciently abundant among American sheep. Sheep-growers 
are divided in opinion as to whether the French or Spanish 
Merino be the best sheep for the state. The French Merino 
grows large, and averages more wool to the sheep than any 
other kind, but it is said that the Spanish Merino, though 
smaller, will produce more wool to the acre. About a thou- 
sand sheep are kept in a herd. One sbeep-owner m Monterey 
county has 30,000 head ; and others have 15,000 and 20,000 
head each. The largest sheep county is Monterey, which has 
about 150,000; Solano has nearly as many, and after these 
come Los Angeles, San Bernardino, and San Luis Obispo. 
There are about 900,000 sheep in the state, and their number 
is rapidly mcreasing. One of the drawbacks of wool-growing 



AGRICULTURE. 233 

in California is, that in the summer the wool gets full of the 
little hurs of the bur-clover, which gives much trouble in w^ash- 
ing and carding. By sheering early this trouble is to some 
extent avoided. Of course the sheep grow lean in the late 
fall, as do the horses and neat cattle, and some of them die of 
starvation. The same remarks may apply to high-blood sheep 
as to other high-blood animals — they must degenerate if they 
get no cultivated food ; but the stock may be kept up by cross- 
ing with high-fed bucks of pure blood. 

§ 171. Sioine. — Swine are not favorite animals in Califor- 
nia. They increase rapidly and are healthy, and their meat 
commands a high price, but they do not thrive upon the dry 
pastures ; they are not permitted to run at large in many coun- 
ties ; the mast is scanty in the agricultural counties, and grain 
suitable for feed is dear. It is probable that in a few years 
o-reat numbers of swine will be bred in the tules, the roots of 
which they like to eat ; but the tule-lands at present are in 
Avide undivided tracts, and the swine which have access to 
them soon get lost. The present number of swine in the state 
is about six hundred thousand. 

§ 172. Poultry. — Poultry command very high prices in this 
state, but all attempts to breed them on a large scale, have 
proved unprofitable. liens are worth from fifty to seventy- 
five cents each, and eggs from twenty-five to fifty cents per 
dozen. Chickens are healthy and increase rapidly in small 
poultry-yards or farms ; but when more than five hundred are 
collected a fatal epidemic appears, and they die off. The dis- 
ease seems to be a kind of apoplexy, for it attacks the fattest 
chickens, and they die suddenly. One large hennery, on the 
French plan, has been established about eight miles from Oak- 
land, and it contains one thousand five hundred hens, with 
accommodations for five thousand. The poultry-yard covers 
four acres of ground, and one acre of it is separated from the 
remainder. The hens lay in the lower story of a frame house, 
which is open on one side. The nests are in a long trough, a 

foot square, open on top, and separated into nests by partitions. 
11* 



234 KESOXIRCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

Each nest has some hay in it and a mock egg of porcelain. 
Several times in the course of a day, the eggs are taken out 
and placed in a covered box near at hand. Four or five hens 
may use the same nest in the course of a day, and if the eggs 
•were left in the nest the warmth might start the development 
of the chick, and injure the egg for either hatching or eating. 
It is considered bad policy to let a hen sit on eggs while lay- 
ing, even if she is to hatch them herself, for some will be far- 
ther advanced in incubation than others, and then the propor- 
tion of loss will be great. Over the laying department is the 
roosting place, which is eighteen feet high, and his the perches 
so fixed that the droppings of one hen do not fall on another 
A stairway leads up from the ground to the roosting chamber 
In the lower story of another house is the hatching depart- 
ment, with nests for six hundred hens. The nests are about a 
foot square, with a door in front, opening on a level with the 
floor. They are numbered and divided into sections, each of 
which has one door, and has hens which commenced sitting at 
the same date. The hens are fed by sections ; ten, twenty or 
thirty being let out at a time, and called to eat. When first 
called they do not understand it, and after they have eaten, 
they have difliculty in finding their places ; but in three or four 
days they come out immediately as soon as the door is opened, 
and when the signal for closing is given, they go to their places 
without the least confusion. About a dozen eggs, usually not 
more than four, and never more than ten days old, are given to 
each sitting hen, and of this dozen, nine or ten are hatched on 
an average. Every nest has snuflf in the bottom of it to keep out 
the lice. When the hen has hatched out her brood, she and 
they are transferred to the "young-chick room," over the 
hatching room, where every hen is put in a pen. During the 
first twenty-four hours the little chicks get nothing to oat ; 
then they are fed twice on fine bread, after that on boiled rice 
and corn-meal. They are fed four times a day. When five 
days old, the chicks, with their mother, are placed in the 
smaller enclosure of the poultry -yard, which has several 



AGRICULTUKE. 235 

streams of clear water running through it, bushes and mustard- 
plants for shade, and boxes into which the hens can retire for 
protection against the cold and rain. When the young brood 
enters the yard, the older occupants, or some of them, make war 
on it, and one chick in a dozen is slain in these hostilities. After 
the hen has proved by fighting her right to be there, peace is 
restored, and she and her little ones are ready to make war on 
any subsequent intruders. After the chickens are three months 
old, they are turned into the large yard, where they have to 
struggle for their food and lives, with all the old hens and 
cocks on the place. In the large yard the chickens are fed 
twice a day, and four ounces to each chicken per day. The 
food is wheat, rice, oats, barley, raw meat, cabbage-leaves, 
sorrel, chalk, oyster-,shells, and green mustard. Regularity in 
the time of feeding is considered a matter of much import- 
ance. There should be one cock to a dozen hens. The hens 
commence laying when about eight months old and lay most 
in their second year. They will continue laying till their fifth 
or sixth year, but they are usually killed about the end of the 
fourth year. Hens that eat eggs and that crow are killed. 
Hens which want to sit when their services are not needed in 
that way, are shut up in the callaboose, kept there one or two 
days, with- no food save green vegetables, ducked several times 
in cold water and then let out cured. In ei2:ht or ten da^'S 
they are ready to commence laying again. A hen will lay 
fifteen or eighteen eggs before wanting to sit. 

One man near Oakland, devotes himself entirely to the busi- 
ness of breeding rabbits, and according to rumor, finds it very 
profitable. 

Goats, pigeons, and pheasants are bred in California, but on 
only a small scale. 

§ 173. Bees. — There were no bees in California until within 
the last seven years, and it was supposed they could not live 
here, because of the dryness of the vegetation during the last 
half of the year ; but for these insects, as for larger aninials, 
it was found on trial, that our climate is peculiarly favorable. 



236 RESOUKCES OF CALIFORXIA. 

and that tliey thrive better here than east of the mountains. 
A good hive here will make two hundred pomids of honey, or 
may be made to produce twenty swarms in a season, an in- 
crease ten times as great, and a production of honey five times 
as large as that in the Eastern States. Mr. H. Hamilton, a 
bee-keeper of Stockton, reports that he had thirty-five swarms 
of bees on the first of February, 1860 ; and by the first of 
October, they had increased to five hundred hives, and pro- 
duced twenty thousand and seventy-five pounds of honey ; a 
production said to be without parallel. Bees are not idle during 
six months of the year, as in N"ew York, but busy during nine 
or ten months. They find their food in wild and cultivated 
flowers, in the blossoms of manzanita bushes, fruit-trees, grasses, 
clovers, and grains, in grapes, fruits, and honey-dew. They 
seem to thrive in the driest portions of the state, where there 
are no cultivated fields and no flowers or green herbage. They 
are very fond of apricots, which they eat in places where the 
skin has been previously cut through by bugs. When the 
latter have made a hole, the bees come and eat side by side 
with the bugs, which are of the " lady-bug" kind, and other 
similar species. Many of the bees lose their lives in conse- 
quence of their fondness for the apricot. Either they eat too 
much, or they eat the meat after it has passed into the alco- 
holic fermentation ; but whether intoxicated or surfeited, they 
are unable to get home, and they perish during the night. In 
places where the honey-dew is abundant, especially in the 
mountains on the eastern border of the Tulare valley, the 
bees make honey very rapidly. When the food for bees was 
becoming scarce in the midsummer of 1860, in the Santa Clara 
valley, a man owning seventy hives sent them to the vicinity 
of Yisalia, so that they could get honey-dew. Indeed it is the 
custom of several bee-keepers in California, to move their bees 
about from place to place, according to the pasture and the 
season. Hitherto little honey has been sold in the mai-ket, the 
chief object of bee-keepers being to produce swarms, which 
for a time were worth one hundred dollars each This busi- 



AGRICULTURE. 237 

ness yielded so large a profit tliat a dozen men devoted tliem- 
'selves to it exclusively, and some of them, wlio commenced 
five years ago with only three or four hives, now have com- 
fortable fortunes. Tlie hives have increased so rapidly, how- 
ever, that they have fallen greatly in value, and are now worth 
from ten to thirty dollars each ; and honey, Avhich is worth one 
dollar per pound, will come into the market. The honey made 
in the mountains is very similar in quality to that of the East- 
ern states ; that made in the valleys is not so good. Many 
swarms have gone off and found homes for themselves in the 
woods, so it is not rare to find " bee-trees." Most of the bees 
in the Sacramento basin during 1861, were destroyed by the 
flood of 18G2. 

§ 174. Silkworms. — A few silkworms have been hatched, in 
California, and liave been found to thrive extremely well, but 
the high price of labor has prevented any extensive experi- 
ment in the production of silk. Our climate is very favorable 
to them in three respects, equability of temperature, exemption 
from electrical convulsions, and dryness in summer. The silk- 
worms should be kept at a temperature of about 75° Fahren- 
heit, and this is very near the summer temperature of some of 
the valleys near the coast. Extreme heat and extreme cold, 
are both very prejudicial to them. A considerable proportion of 
them will die if the thermometer falls to 45° or rises to 100° ; 
thunderstorms kill a large portion of the worms every year 
in France, Italy, and China ; in California such storms are un- 
known. In all the countries where silk is now produced ex- 
tensively, there are showers winch wet the mulberry leaves, 
and this moisture gives a diarrhoea to the worms whereby 
many are killed. These are important advantages, and may 
enable us to compete soon with Europe and China in the 23ro- 
duction of silk. 

Note. — I owe acknowledgments for information aboiit oraiu to J. W. Os- 
born, of Napa; about fruit to A. A. Colien, of Alameda; about the grape to 
Charles Kohler ; about the orange to John Frohling ; and about the quality 
of wheat from different districts to Isaac Friedlander, of San Francisco. 



238 KESOUKCES OF C A L I F O K N I A. 



CHAPTER yill. 
MINING. 

§ 175. Chief Industry. — Mining is the chief industry of 
California. It employs more men and pays larger average 
wages, than any other branch of physical labor. Although it 
has been gradually decreasing in the amount of its production, 
in the profits to the individuals engaged in it, and in its rela- 
tive importance in the business of the state, it is yet and will 
long continue to be the largest source of our wealth, and the 
basis to support the other kinds of occupation. 

§ 176. Metals obtained. — Our mines now wrought are of 
gold, silver, quicksilver, copper, and coal. Ores of tin, lead, 
and antimony in large veins, beds of sulphur, alum, and as- 
phaltum ; lakes of borax and springs of sulphate of magnesia, 
are also found in the state, but they are not wrought at the 
present time, though they will probably all become valuable 
in a few years. Platinum, iridium, and osmium are obtained 
with the gold in some of the placer mines, but are never found 
alone, nor are they ever the main object sought by the miner. 
The annual yield of our gold mines is about forty millions of 
dollars, of our quicksilver two millions of dollars. Our silver, 
copper, and coal mines have been opened within a year, and 
their value is yet unknown. All our other mining is of little 
importance as compared with the gold. 

§ 177. Gold Mines. — Our gold mines are divided into pla- 
cer and quartz. In the former, the metal is foimd imbedded in 
layers of earthy matter, such as clay, sand, and gravel ; in the 
latter it is incased in veins of rock. The methods of mining 
must be adapted to the size of the particles of gold, and the 



MINING. 239 

nature of the material in which they are found. In placer 
mining, the earthy matter containing the gold, called the " pay- 
dirt," is washed in water, which dissolves the clay and carries 
it off in solution, and the current sweeps away the sand, gravel, 
and stones, while the gold, by reason of the higher specific 
gravity, remains in the channel or is caught w4th quicksilver. 
In quartz mining the auriferous rock is ground to a very fine 
powder, the gold in which is caught in quicksilver, or on the 
rough surface of a blanket, over which the fine material is 
borne by a stream of water. About two-thirds of our gold is 
obtained from the placers, and one-third from the quartz. 

A mine is defined and generally understood to mean " a 
subterraneous work or excavation for obtaining metals, metallic 
ores or mineral substances ;" but this definition does not •'^pply 
to our placer mines, which are places where gold is taken from 
diluvial or alluvial deposits. Most of the work is not subter- 
raneous ; it is done in the full light of day. In some of the 
claims the pay-dirt lies within two feet of the surface ; in 
others it lies much deeper, but all the superincumbent matter 
is swept away. 

"Water is the great agent of the placer miner; it is the ele- 
ment of his power ; its amount is the measure of his work, 
and its cost is the measure of his profit. With an abundance 
of water he can w^ash every thing ; without water he can do 
little or nothing. Placer mining is almost entirely mechanical, 
and of such a kind that no accuracy of workmanship or scien- 
tific or literary education is necessary to mastery in it. 'Amal- 
gamation is a chemical process it is true, but it is so simple 
that after a few days' experience, the rudest laborer will man- 
age it as well as the most thorough chemist. 

It is impossible to ascertain the amount of gold which 
has been taken from the mines of California. Records have 
been kept of the sums manifested at the San Francisco Custom 
House, for exportation, and deposited for coinage in the mints 
of the United States ; and there is also some knowledge of 
the amounts sent in bars and dust to England ; but we have 



240 KESOUKCES OF CALIFOPwNIA. 

no account of the sums carried by passengers to foreign coun- 
tries and coined elsewhere than at London, or used as jewehy, 
or of the amount now in circulation in this state. According 
to the books of the custom-house of San Francisco, the sums 
manifested for export were as follows : 

In 1849, $4,921,250; in 1850, $27,676,346; in 1851, $42,- 
582,695; in 1852, $46,586,134 ; in 1853, $57,331,034 ; in 1854, 
$51,328,653; in 1855, $45,182,681 ; in 1856, $48,887,543; in 
1857, $48,976,697 ; in 1858, $47,548,025 ; in 1859, $47,640,462 ; 
in 1860, $42,303,345; in 1861, $40,639,089; a total of $551,603,- 
904 in twelve years. 

The exportation of gold commenced in 1848, but we have 
no record of the sums sent away in that year. Previous to 
1854 very large sums were carried away by passengers, who 
gave no statement at the custom-house; since that year, the 
manifests show the exportation correctly within a fevv millions. 
I am entirely satisfied that the total gold yield of California 
has been not less than seven hundred millions of dollars ; but 
I have not room here to state the reasons for this opinion. My 
estimate is considerably less than that of most business men 
of the state, and less than that made by Hmit's Merchants' 
Magazine. There was undoubtedly a regular increase in the 
annual yield of the mines from 1848 to the end of 1853 ; and 
there has been a gradual decrease since the beginning of 1854 
— a decrease perhaps not very regular but still certain. Since 
1854 considerable sums exported from San Francisco and in- 
cluded in our tables, came from mines beyond the limits of 
CaUfornia, such as the mines in Southern Oregon, in the east- 
ern part of Washington Territory, in British Columbia, an<l 
in Xevada Territory ; and while the Californian gold yield has 
been decreasing, these extraneous supplies have been increi:s- 
ing. Several milhons must be deducted from the annual 
shipments since 1858, for foreign gold. The gold yield will 
undoubtedly continue to f;ill, but to what point and at wliat 
rate no one can know. I believe that in 1870, the yield will 
not exceed thirty millions of dollars. 



MIXING. 241 

§ 178. Placer Mines. — Placer miues are divided into many 
classificatioDS. The first and most important is into deep and 
shallow. In the former the pay-dirt is found deep, twenty 
feet or more beneath the surface ; in the latter, near the sur- 
face. The shallow or surface diei'inirs are chiefly found in the 
Ijeds of rayines and gullies, in the bars of riyers, and in shal- 
low flats ; the deep diggings are in hills and deep flats. The 
pay-dirt is usually covered by layers of barren dirt, which is 
sometimes washed, and sometimes left undisturbed, while the 
pay-dirt is taken out from beneath it through tunnels or shafts. 
So far as our present information goes, we haye reason to be- 
lieye that no gold country ever possessed so large an extent 
of paying placer mines, with the pay-dirt so near the surface, 
and with so many facilities for working them as California. 
In Australia the diggings are yery deep and spotted, that is, 
the gold is uneyenly distributed, and the supply of water for 
mining is scanty. In Siberia the winter is terribly cold during 
six months of the year. In Brazil the dicrgincrs were not so 
extensiye nor so rich as in this state. Here we haye numerous 
large streams coming down through the mining districts, very 
large bodies of pay-dirt, and a mild climate. 

After diyiding placers into deep and shallow, the next clas- 
sification will be according to their topographical position, as 
into hill, flat, bench, bar, river-bed, ancient river-bed, and 
gulch mines. HiU diggings are those where the pay-dii't is 
in or under a hill. Flat diggings are in a flat. Bench dig- 
gings are in a " bench" or narrow table on the side of a hill 
above a river. Benches of this kind are not uncommon in 
California, and they often indicate the place where the stream 
ran in some yery remote age. Bars are low collections of 
sand and grayel at the side of a river and above its surface at 
low water. River-bed claims are those beneath the surfoce of 
the river at low water, and access is obtained to them only by 
removing the water from the bed by flumes or ditches. An- 
cient river-bed claims are those of which the gold was deposited 
by streams in places where no streams now exist Gulch claims 



242 KESOUECES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

are those in gullies which have no water, save during a small 
part of the year. A " claim" is the mining land owned or 
held by one man or a company. 

The placer mines are again classified according to the man- 
ner in which, or the instruments with which they are wrought. 
There are sluice claims, hydraulic claims, timnel claims, dry 
washing, dry digging, and knife claims. In 1849 and 1850, 
the main classification of the placers was into wet diggings 
and dry diggings, the former meaning mines in the bars and 
beds of rivers, and dry diggings were those in gullies and flats 
where water could be obtained only 2)art of the year or not at 
all. That classification was made while nearly all the mining 
was done near the surface, before the great deposits of pay- 
dirt in the hills had been discovered, and before ditches, sluices, 
and the hydraulic process had been introduced. The class of 
mines then known as the " dry diggings," and which for 
several years furnished nearly half of the gold yield of the 
state, are now, with a few miimportant exceptions, exhausted, 
or left to the attention of the Chinamen. 

The purpose of all placer miners is not to catch all the gold 
in the dirt which they Avash, but to catch the greatest possible 
quantity within a given time. It is not supposed that any 
process used in gold mining catches all the metal. Part of it is 
lost ; in some processes a considerable proportion. The general 
estimate in California is, that one-twentieth of the gold in the 
dirt which is washed is lost. Many of the particles are so 
very small as to be invisible to the naked eye, and so light 
that their specific gravity does not avail to prevent them from 
being carried away by the water like sand. The larger pieces 
will sink to the bottom and resist the force of the water ; the 
smaller the particles, the greater the danger that it will be 
borne away. Many devices have been tried to_catcli all the 
gold, but none have succeeded i^erfectly, and some which have 
caught a portion of what escaped from the ordinary modes of 
mining, have been found to cost more than their yield. The 
miner does not grieve about that which he cannot catch. He 



MINING. 243 

is not careful to catch all that he could. His purpose is to 
draw the largest possible revenue per day from his claim. He 
does not intend to spend many years in mining, or if he does 
he has become thriftless and improvident. In either case, he 
wishes to derive the utmost immediate profit from his mine. 
If his chiim contain a dollar to the ton, and he can save five 
dollars by slowly washing only six tons in a day, while he 
might make ten dollars by rapidly washing fifteen tons in a 
day, he will prefer the latter result, though he will lose twice 
as much of the precious metal by the fast as by the slow mode 
of working. The object of the miner is the practical dispatch 
of Avork, and his success will depend to a great extent upon 
the amount of dirt which he can wash within a given space of 
time. He regrets that any of the gold should be Avasted, but 
his regret is because it escapes from his sluice and his pocket, 
rather than because it is lost to industry and commerce. 

§ 179. Tlie Sluice. — The board-sluice is a long wooden 
trough, through which a constant stream of water runs, and 
into which the auriferous dirt is thrown. The water carries 
away the clay, sand, gravel, and stones, and leaves the gold in 
the bottom of the sluice, where it is caught by its gravity and 
by quicksilver. The board-sluice is the great washing ma- 
chine, and the most important instrument used in the placer 
mining of California. It washes nearly all the dirt and catches 
nearly all the placer gold of the country. It was invented 
here, although it had previously been used elsewhere ; it has 
been more extensively employed hete than in any other country, 
and it can be used here to more advantage than elsewhere. It 
is not less than fifty feet long, nor less than a foot wide, made 
of boards. The width is usually sixteen or eighteen inches ; 
and never exceeds five feet. The length is ordinarily several 
hundred and sometimes several thousand feet. It is made 
in sections or "boxes" twelve or fourteen feet long. The 
boards are an inch and a half thick, and are sawn for that 
special purpose, the bottom boards being four inches wider at 
one end than the other. The narrow end of one box therefore 



244 EESO FECES OP CALIFOEXIA. 

its in the wide end of another, and in that way the shiice is 
put together, a lo^ig succession of boxes, the lower end of 
eacli resting in the upper end of another, and not fastened 
together otherwise. These boxes stand u})on trestles, with a 
descent varying from eight to eighteen inches in twelve feet. 
It is therefore an easy matter to put up or take down a sluice 
after the boxes are made, and it is not uncommon for the 
miners to haul their boxes from one claim to another. The 
descent of a sluice is usually the same throughout its length, 
and is called its " grade.'' If there be a fall of eight inches 
in twelve feet, the sluice has an " eight-inch grade," and if the 
fiill be twice as great, it is a " sixteen-inch grade." The grade 
depends upon the character of the pay-dirt, the length of the 
sluice, and its position. The steeper the descent, the more 
rapidly the dirt is dissolved, but the greater the danger also 
that the fine particles of gold will be carried away by the 
water. The tougher the dirt, that is, the greater its resistance 
to the dissolving power of the water, the steeper, other things 
being equal, should be the sluice. A slow current does not 
dissolve tough clay, and that is the greater part of the pay- 
dirt, so rapidly as a swift one. The shorter the sluice, other 
things being equal, the smaller the grade should be. There is 
more danger that the fine particles of gold will be lost by a 
short sluice than by a longer one, and to diminish this danger, 
the rapidity of the current must be reduced by a small grade. 
The greater the amomit of dirt to be washed, other things 
being equal, the steeper should be the grade ; for a swift cur- 
rent will wash more dirt than a slow one. In many claims 
the pay-dirt is full of large stones and boulders, weighing from 
one liundi-ed to five hundred pounds each, all of which must be 
carried away through the sluice. Some are sent down whole, 
and others are broken into pieces with sledge-hammers before 
they are thrown into the box. These require a swift current 
and a large body of water. The larger the supply of water, 
the steeper the sluice is made, other things being equal. Of 
course economy and convenience of working require that the 



MINING. 245 

sluice should be near the level of the ground, and as that may 
be steep or level below the claim, the grade of the sluice must 
to some extent conform to it. There are thus a multitude of 
points to be taken into consideration in fixing the grade of a 
sluice ; but a fall of less than eight or more than twenty inches, 
in a box of twelve feet, would be considered as unsuitable for 
the board-sluice. Sometimes the upper part of the sluice is 
made steeper so as to dissolve the dirt, and the lower jDart has 
a small grade to catch the gold. The cla^'ey matter of ordi- 
nary i^a^'-dirt is fully dissolved in a sluice two hundred feet 
long with a low grade, so the use of the boxes beyond that 
length is merely to catch the gold. There are claims however 
in which the clay is so extremely tough that it will roll in 
large balls more than a quarter of a mile through a steep sluice 
with a large head of water, and come out at the lower end 
scarcely diminished in size. 

The gold is caught in the sluice-boxes by false bottoms of 
various kinds. It would not do to leave the smooth boards, 
for the water would sweep all the gold away, and the boards 
themselves would soon be worn throuo;h. The most common 
false bottom is the longitudinal riffle-bar, which is fi'om two to 
four inches thick, from three to seven inches wide, and six feet 
long. Two sets of these riffle-bars go into each sluice-box, the 
box being twice as long as the bar. A set of riffle-bars is as 
many as fill one-half of a box. They are wedged in, from an inch 
to two inches apart ; the wedging being used, because the bars 
can more readily be fastened in their places, and more easily 
taken up, than if nails were used. Before the work of sluicing 
commences, all the boxes are fitted with riffle-bars, and the 
bottom of the sluice is therefore full of holes from one to two 
inches wide, from three to seven inches deep, and six feet long. 
These are the places in which the gold, quicksilver, and amal- 
gam are caught. Quicksilver is used now in nearly all the sluices, 
and is the more necessary the smaller the particles of gold. 
The large pieces of the metal would all be caught by their 
specific gravity without the aid of amalgamation. 



246 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

The sluice-boxes having been made, and set np "with th 
proper grade, the water is turned in. The boxes are made ol 
the rough boards as they come from the saw, and the joints are 
not waterproof, but the leaks are soon stopped by the swelling 
of the wood, or by the dirt. The stream of water in the sluics 
is at least two inches deep over the bottom. The height of 
the sides of the boxes is from eight inches to two feet. The 
sluice usually runs through the claim, and the auriferous dirt 
is thrown in with shovels, of which from four to twenty are 
constantly at work. A man will throw in from two to five 
cubic yards of dirt in one day. The water rushing over the 
dirt as it lies in the box, rapidly dissolves the clay and loam, 
and then sweeps the sand, gravel, and stones down. The first 
dirt in the box goes to fill the spaces between the riffle-bars. 
After the sluicing has been in progress a couple of hours, some 
quicksilver is put in at the head of the sluice, and it gradually 
finds its way downward, most of it stopping, however, near 
where it is put in. 

§ 180. Amalgamation. — There are a few metals, including 
gold, silver, copper, and tin, which, with quicksilver, form a 
peculiar chemical union called amalgamation, a process of great 
importance to the gold miner. "When a piece of gold or silver 
is placed in mercury, the latter metal gradually penetrates 
through it, destroys the coherence of its particles, and forms 
with it a mass like dough. A lump of gold as large as a bean 
will be soaked through in three or four days ; with silver and 
copper the process is slower, but they are affected in the same 
manner. Amalgamation, though a union of a solid with a 
liquid, difters much from a solution. In the latter the union is 
mechanical ; in the former it its chemical. In the latter the 
solid is reduced to particles of impalpable fineness ; in the 
former it is not. An ounce of salt will be dissolved in, and 
nearly equally difiiised through, a pint of w\ater ; but if an ounce 
of gold be thrown into a pint of quicksilver, it will, after forming 
an amnlgam with the quicksilver, remain at the bottom. We 
have no texture so fine that it will strain salt out of water; but 



MINING. 247 

the particles of gold are so coarse in amalgam that they can 
easily be strained out by means of buckskin or tight cloths. 
However a little gold will remain in the quicksilver — about 
the fiftieth part of an ounce of gold in every pound of quick- 
silver; and the only method of obtaining this gold is by re- 
torting. 

Quicksilver is used in gold mining for catching the small 
particles of metal ; the large ones are caught by their weight. 
But many of the particles are so small that they are almost in- 
visible to the naked eye, and when in moving w^ater they 
float. Miners frequently sliow visitors the fineness of their gold 
by putting some of the dust in a vial with water ; and upon 
shaking, the particles of metal can be seen floating about in 
the clear water. Riffles, and all the devices to get the benefit 
of specific gravity, are of little use to arrest this " float-gold," 
so amalgamation is employed. Kabit of quicksilver is put in 
the Avay of the fine gold, the two metals unite at once and 
make a larger bulk, which can be caught. 

There is no such attraction between gold and quicksilver as 
there is between the magnet and iron ; but when the two for- 
mer metals once touch, an amalgam is immediately formed, and 
if the proportions of the metals be about even, they in time 
make a hard mass. Some gold does not amalgamate readily ; 
in various diggings of Siskiyou county, the gold has a red- 
dish coating, which prevents amalgamation. Grease or resin 
in the w^ater used for washing, is also unfavorable. So is cold. 
Heat is favorable, and therefore less gold is lost in summer 
than in winter. Quicksilver that has been once used is consid- 
ered better than that fresh from the flask. 

No tinned iron or copper vessel should be used for holding 
or panning out amalgam, or dirt containing amalgam ; since 
quicksilver forms an amalgam with tin and copper, and will 
stick to the sides of a tinned or copper pan. 

In most sluices, the quicksilver is put in above the riff[le- 
bars at various places along in the boxes, with a confidence 
that the great specific gravity of the metal will prevent it from 



248 EESOUPvCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

being lost. The greater the quantity and proportion of fine 
gold, the greater the importance of the quicksilver. 

The best method of catching very fine gold by amalgama- 
tion is to cover a large copper plate with mercury, and let the 
dirt and water, in a thickness of not more than a quarter of an 
inch, pass over it slowly. There are various methods of cover- 
ing copper plates with quicksilver. The first thing, in every 
case, is to wash the copper with diluted nitric acid, so as to 
remove all dirt and grease. The quicksilver may then be 
rubbed on with a rag ; or, still better, it may be dissolved in 
nitric acid, and the liquid nitrate of quicksilver may be applied 
with a rag. The nitric acid will attack the copper, and leave the 
quicksilver as an amalgam on the surface of the copper. This 
is the most common process, but the nitrate of copper con- 
tinues for a long time to come up through the quicksilver and 
interfere with the catching of the gold. When the nitrate of 
copper appears — it is a green slime — it should be scraped off" 
and the place rubbed over with quicksilver. When a plate is 
once covered with mercury, the operation need never be re- 
peated ; but more mercury must be sprinkled on as the gold 
collects and forms a solid amalgam. The plate is usually three 
feet wide and six feet long, and is set nearly level. In very 
large sluices the stream should be divided so as to run over 
difi"erent plates. The slowness of the current and the shallow- 
ness of the water are important, for with a swift current or 
deep water many of the particles of float-gold may escape 
without touching the quicksilver. Wherever a speck of gold 
has fixed itself on the plate, there others will collect about it, 
evidently preferring to fix themselves in a neighborhood rather 
than in a waste place. The more gold there is on a plate, the 
better it is considered to be. The seasons for cleaning up are 
usually determined by the danger of theft. Miners do not like 
to leave their gold out in quantities so large as to attract 
thieves. The amalgam is sometimes half an inch thick, and 
is usually, at cleaning-up time, a hard mass, which must be 
loosened by heat. The plate is put on a fire, and when it gets 



MIXING. 249 

so warm that the hand can scarcely bear it, the amalgam is 
softened and loosened, so that it can be scraped off readily. 
The plate is then sprinkled anew with quicksilver, and is ready 
for use again. Mercury does not amalgamate with copper so 
readily as with gold or silver. A copper j^late, the sixteenth 
of an inch thick, may be used for at least five years, and per- 
haps for ten ; whereas a gold plate of equal thickness would, 
if exposed to the action of quicksilver in the same manner, faH 
to pieces in a few weeks. After a time the quicksilver per- 
vades the copper, and gives it a silvery whiteness all through 
on the under side. It is said that a solution of cyanuret or 
prussiate of potash, is used instead of nitric acid in applying 
mercury to copper plates, and that it is still better, there being 
then no trouble with the green spots of nitrate of copper. 

A good amalgamated copper plate is considered as service- 
able as a bed of quicksilver of equal size, and it is very much 
cheaper and more convenient to manage. 

The dirt and water should be admitted to the copper plate, 
by falling first through a sheet-iron plate, pierced with holes 
half an inch Ions: and a sixteenth of an inch wide. Some 
miners place this sheet-iron plate immediately over the copper. 

Very soon after the water and dirt commence to run in the 
sluice, all the spaces between the riffle-bars are filled with 
sand, gravel, and dirt; which, however, present many little 
inequalities of surface, sufficient to catch all the particles of 
gold larger than a pin-head. The largest gold is caught near 
the head of the sluice; and the fiirtlier down the sluice, the 
finer the gold. In some sluices, where the pay-dirt contains 
much coarse gold, the quicksilver is introduced from thirty to 
sixty yards below the head, so as to catch only the fine par- 
ticles of metal. 

§ 181. Cleaning up. — The separation of the gold, amalgam, 
and quicksilver, from the dirt in the bottom of the sluice, is 
called "cleaning up;" and the period between one "clean- 
ing" up and another is called a "run." A run in a common 
board-sluice usually lasts from six to ten days. Ordinarily the 
12 



250 TwESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

sluice runs only during daylight, but in some claims the "work 
continues night and day. Cleaning up occupies from half a 
day to a day, and therefore must not be repeated too often, 
because it consumes too much time. In some sluices the clean- 
ing up does not occur until the riffle-bars have been worn out 
or much bruised by the wear of the stones and gravel. Clean- 
ing up is considered light and pleasant work as compared with 
other sluicing, and is often reserved for Sunday. At the time 
fixed, the throwing in of dirt ceases, and the water runs until 
it becomes clear. Five or six sets of riffle-bars, a distance of 
thirty or thirty-five feet, are taken up at the head of the sluice, 
and the dirt between the bars is washed down, while the gold 
and amalgam lodge above the first remaining set of riffle-bars, 
whence it is taken out with a scoop or large spoon, and put 
into a pan. Five or six more sets of bars are taken up, and 
so on down. Sometimes all the riffle-bars are taken up at 
once, save one sot in every thirty-six feet, and then the work 
of cleaning up is dispatched much more raptdly. 

The quicksilver and amalgam taken from the sluice are put 
into a buckskin or cloth, and pressed, so that the liquid metal 
passes through, and the amalgam is retained. The amalgam, 
is then heated, to drive ofl:' the mercury. This may be done 
either in an open pan or in a close retort. In the former, the 
quicksilver is lost ; in the latter, it is saved. The pan is gen- 
erally preferred. Often a shovel or plate of iron is used. 
Three pounds of amalgam, from which the liquid metal has 
been carefully pressed out, will yield one pound of gold. The 
gold remaining after the quicksilver has been driven off by 
heat from the amalgam, is a porous mass, somewhat resem- 
bling sponge-cake in appearance. 

§ 182. 2\f\fffe-Jjars. — The riffle-bars are usually sawn longi- 
tudinally with the grain of the wood, but " block riffle-bars" 
are considered preferable; the latter are cut across the tree, 
and the grain stands upright in the sluice-box. The block 
riffle-bars are three times more durable than the longitudinal; 
and as the latter kind are worn out in a week in some large 



MINING. 251 

sluices, there is a considerable savincr in usinc: the former. 
The block riffle-bars are only two or three feet long. 

In some small sluices the riffle-bars are not placed in the 
boxes longitudinally, nor in sets ; but one bar near the head 
runs downward at an angle of forty-five degrees to the course 
of the box, not touching its lower end to the side of the box, 
but leaving an open space of an inch there. Just below this 
open space another bar starts from the side of the box and 
runs downward at right angles to the course of the first bar, 
and an open space is again left at the end of this bar ; and so 
on down to near the lower end of the sluice, where there are 
longitudinal riffle-bars in sets as described in the preceding 
paragraphs. The consequence of using this kind of riffle-bar 
is, that though much of the water and light dirt runs straight 
over the bars, the heavier material runs down from side to side 
in a z\a:ziia; course. Near the head of the sluice is a vessel, 
from which quicksilver Mis by drops into the box ; and it fol- 
lows the coursesof riffle-bars, overtaking the gold which takes 
the same route. These zigzng riffle- bars are nailed down. In 
all sluices, men must keep watch to see that the boxes do not 
choke ; that is, that the dirt and stones do not collect in one 
place, so as to make a dam, and cause the water to run over 
the sides, and thus waste the gold. 

There are small sluices, from which all stones as large as a 
doubled fist are thrown out. For this purpose the miner uses 
a sluice-fork, which is like a large manure-fork or garden-fork, 
but has tines which are blunt and of equal width all the way 
down ; the bluntness being intended to prevent the tines from 
catching in the wood, and the equality of width to prevent the 
stones from getting fast in the fork. 

In some sluices, the "block riffle-bars" — that is, bars cut 
across the grain of the tree — are set transversely in the boxes, 
and about two inches apart. 

Another device is, to fill the pores of such riffle-bars with 
quicksilver. This is done by driving an iron cylinder with 
a sharp edge into the surface of the bar, then putting mercury 



252 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

into tne cylinder, and pressing it into the wood. The quick- 
silver, thus fastened in the wood, catches particles of gold, 
"which must be scraped off when the time for " cleaning up" 
comes. 

§ 183. Double Sluices. — Sluices are sometimes made double 
— that is, with a longitudinal division through the middle, so 
that there are two distinct sluice-boxes side by side. Two 
companies may be working side by side, so that it will be 
cheaper for them to build their sluices jointly. In some places 
the amount of water varies greatly ; so that in the winter there 
is enough to run two sluices, and in the summer only one. And 
there are companies which wish to continue washing without 
interruption ; so they wash first on one side and then on the 
other, and clean up without any interruption to the process of 
Avashino-. 

Another device for saving gold in sluices is the " under-cur- 
rent box." There is a grating of iron bars in the bottom of a 
box, near the lower end of a sluice ; and under this grating is 
another sluice, with an additional supply of clean water, and 
with a lower grade. The grating allows only the fine mate- 
rial to fall through ; and the current of water being moderate, 
many particles of gold, that would otherwise be lost, are saved. 
Sometimes the matter from the under-current box is led back 
to the main sluice. 

§ 184. JRoclc- Sluices. — Large sluices are frequently paved 
with stone, which makes a more durable false bottom than 
wood, and catches fine gold better than riffle-bars. The stone 
bottoms have another advantage — that it is not so easy for 
thieves to come and clean up at night, as is often done in riffle- 
bar sluices. But, on the other hand, cleaning up is more diffi- 
cult and tedious m a rock-sluice, and so is the putting down of 
the false bottom after cleaning up. The stones used are cob- 
bles, six or eight inches through at the greatest diameter, and 
usually flattish. A good workman will pave eight hundred 
square feet of sluice-box with them in a day ; and after the wa- 
ter and dirt have run over them for an hour, they are fastened 



MINING. 253 

very tightly by the sand collected between them. In large 
sluices, wooden riffle-bars are worn away very rapidly — the 
expense amounting sometimes, in very large and long sluices, 
to twenty or thirty dollars a day ; and in this point there is an 
important saving by using the stone bottoms. They are used 
only in large sluices, and they generally have a grade of twelve 
or fourteen inches to the box of twelve feet. 

§ 185. Hydraulic Mining. — After the board-sluice, with its 
various adjuncts of riffle-bars, stone bottoms, copper plates, 
and so forth, the next instrument of importance in the gold- 
mining of California is the hydraulic hose, used to let water 
down from a considerable height, and throw it under the press- 
ure of its own weight against the pay-dirt, which is thus torn 
down, broken up, dissolved, and carried into the sluice below. 
The sluice is a necessary part of hydraulic mining. The hose 
is used, not to wash the dirt, but to save digging with shovels, 
and to carry it to the sluice. 

The hydraulic process is applied only in claims where the 
dirt is deep and where the water is abundant. If the dirt 
were shallow in the claim and its vicinity, the necessary head 
of water could not be obtained. Hydraulic claims are usually 
in hills. The water is led along on the hill at a height varying 
from fifty to two hundred feet above the bed-rock, to the claim 
at the end or side of the hill, where the water, playing against 
the dirt, soon cuts a large hole, with perpendicular or at least 
steep banks. At the top of the bank is a little reservoir, con- 
taining perhaps not more than a hundred gaflons, into which 
the water runs constantly, and from which the hose extends 
down to the bottom of the claim. The hose is of heavy duck, 
sometimes double, sewn by machine. This hose when full is 
from four to ten inches in diameter, and will bear a perpendic- 
ular column of water fifty feet high ; but a greater height will 
burst it. Now, as the force of the stream increases with the 
height of the water, it is a matter of great importance to have 
the hose as strong as possible; and for this purpose, in some 
claims, it is surrounded by iron bands, which are about two 



254 EESOUECES OF CALIFORXIA. 

inches wide, and are connected by four ropes which run per- 
pendicularly down. The rings are about three inches apart. 
The " crinoline hose," thus made, is very flexible, and will sup- 
port a cohimn of water one hundred and fifty or two hundred 
feet high. The pipe at the end of the hose is like the pipe of 
a fire-engine hose, though usually larger. Sometimes the pipe 
wall be eight inches in diameter where it connects with the 
hosCj and not more than two inches at the mouth ; and the 
force with which the stream rushes from it is so great, that it 
wall kill a man instantaneously, and tear down a hill more rap- 
idly than could a hundred men with shovels. 

One or two men are required to hold the pipe. They usu- 
ally turn the stream upon the bank near its bottom until a 
large mass of dirt tumbles down, and then they wash this all 
away into the sluice ; when they commence at the bottom of 
the bank airain, and so on. K the bank is one hundred and 
fifty feet high, the mass of earth that tumbles down is of 
course immense, and the pipemen must stand far ofi*, for fear 
that they will be caught in the avalanche. Such accidents are 
of daily occurrence, and the deaths from this cause probably 
are not less than threescore every year in the state. Often 
legs are broken ; still more frequently the pipemen have warn- 
ing, and escape in time. When men are buried in the falling 
dirt, the water is used to wash them out. In some claims, the 
pipe will tear down more dirt than the sluice can wash ; in 
other claims, the sluice always demands more dirt than the 
pipe can bring down. In the latter case, blasting may be used 
to loosen the dirt, or the miners may undermine the bank, 
leaving a few columns of dirt for support ; and then these be- 
ing washed away by the pi^^e, the whole bank comes tumbling 
down. 

In hydraulic claims, all the dirt is washed; in all other 
kinds of claims, such dirt as contains no gold is thrown to one 
side, or "stripped off." — "Hydraulic mining" is the highest 
branch of placer mining ; it washes more dirt, and requires 
more water, and a larger sluice, than any other kind of mining. 



MINING. 255 

Tlie number of men employed in a hydraulic claim, however, 
is usually small, from three to six, the water doing nearly all 
the work. In some claims a man is constantly employed with 
a heavy sledge-hammer in breaking up large stones, so that 
the pieces may be sent down the sluice. One man attends to 
the sluice, and sees that the dirt does not choke up in the 
sluice, or in the claim above it. 

The quantity of dirt that can be washed with a hydraulic 
pipe depends upon various circumstances — such as the sup- 
ply of water, the height of its fall, the toughness of the dirt, 
and the amount of moisture in it. More can be washed in win- 
ter than in summer, because the dirt is then moister, and re- 
quires less water to loosen and dissolve it. The quantity of 
water used in a hydraulic claim is from forty to two hundred 
inches. With one hundred inches, at least thirty cubic yards 
can be washed in ten hours, on an average ; and three men 
can do all the work. If there were a cent's worth of gold in 
each cubic foot, the thirty cubic yards would yield eight dol- 
lars and ten cents per day, or two dollars and seventy cents to 
tlie man, exclusive of the cost of water. But, as a matter of 
fact, nearly all the hydraulic claims pay more than that, and 
they will average at least three cents to the cubic foot, and 
many of them yield five cents. The water usually costs twen- 
ty cents an inch per day, so that one hundred inches would 
cost twenty dollars. Allowing for the water at that rate, a 
claim in which thirty cubic yards could be washed in a day 
with one hundred inches of water, and in which the dirt con- 
tained five cents tp the cubic foot, would leave a net pay of six 
dollars and sixty-six cents to each man per day. 

One hydraulic company, of whose labors I have a note, 
washed two hundred and twenty-four thousand cubic feet of 
dirt in six days, using two hundred inches of water, and em- 
ploying ten men. The wages of the men amounted, at four 
dollars per day each, to two hundred and forty dollars ; the 
water cost three hundred dollars ; and the waste of quicksilver, 
and wear of sluice, perhaps one hundred dollars more, making 



256 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

a total expenditure of six hundred and forty dollars : and the 
gold obtained was three thousand dollars, leaving a clear profit 
of twenty-thi-ee hundred and fifty dollars. The dirt contained 
one cent and a fifth of gold in a cubic foot. The greater the 
amount of water used, the greater the proportionate amount 
of dirt that can be washed, and the greater the proportionate 
profits. It is far more profitable to have a large sluice than a 
little one, if the water and dirt can be obtained in abundance. 

Usually, in a hydraulic claim, the dirt is washed down to 
the bed-rock ; but in some places the washing stops far above 
the bed-rock, because there is no outlet for the water. 

§ 186. JBlasting. — In some hydraulic claims, the dirt, in dry 
seasons, is blasted, so as to loosen it. A drift or hole is cut 
into the bottom of a hill one or two hundred feet high, and a 
number of kegs of powder (from twenty to two hundred) are 
introduced, and they are fired with a slow match. The explo- 
sion makes an earthquake in the vicinity ; and the ground is 
loosened to such an extent that there is a great saving of labor. 
The breaking up of the dirt and the exposure to the air are 
supposed to facilitate the washing greatly. 

More water is required for piping down banks than for 
washing the dirt ; and often the sluice is almost idle for want 
of dirt, while the water, after being thrown against the hill- 
side, runs away without doing any service at washing. Blast- 
ing, therefore, by loosening the earth, enables the hydraulic 
miner to have an abundant and regular supply of dirt in his 
sluice, at an expense much less than the cost of manual labor 
to dig the bank down with pick and shovel. 

§ 187. Tail-Sluice. — The tail-sluice is a large sluice made 
for rewashing the tailings or dirt which has previously passed 
through other sluices. It is placed ordinarily in the bed of a 
ravine or creek through which tailings run, and it receives no 
attention for weeks or months at a time, save to keep it from 
choking. The sluices emptying into it furnish both dirt and 
water, and in the dirt there is always a large amount of tine 
gold, as is plainly proved by the fact that some of the tail- 



MINING. 257 

sluices have paid large profits to their owners. Tail-sluices 
are always large, long, and paved with stones ; and sometimes 
they are double, so that one side may be cleaned up while the 
other continues washing. In a branch of the Yuba there is. 
or was not long since, a tail-sluice twenty feet wide. 

§ 188. Tunnel- Sluice. — A tunnel-sluice is a sluice, in a tun- 
nel. It sometimes happens that a considerable body of water 
runs out through a tunnel ; and in such case, a sluice at the 
bottom of the tunnel offers the easiest method of getting out 
and washing the dirt. The tunnels are never cut level, but 
with a slightly-ascending grade, so that the water will always 
run out. The grade is so low, that transverse riffle-bars must 
be used ; for with longitudinal riffle-bars or stones, there would 
be too much danger of choking. These tunnel-sluices, because 
of. their low grades, require much more attention than any 
other kind of sluices. 

§ 189. Ground- Sluice. — All the sluices hitherto mentioned 
and described have wooden boxes,'but the ground-sluice has no 
box : the water runs on the ground. The place selected for the 
ground-sluice is some spot where there is a considerable supply 
of water, a steep descent for it, and much poor dirt. The stream 
is turned through a little ditch, which the miners labor to deepen 
and enlarge, and when it is deep they prize off the high banks 
so that the dirt may fall down into the ditch. This is a very 
cheap and expeditious way of washing, but it is not applied 
extensively. It is used to the most advantage for washing 
where the water is abundant for only a few weeks after heavy 
rains, and where it would not pay to erect large sluices. A 
few cobble-stones should be left or thrown at intervals in the 
bed of the ground-sluice to arrest the gold, for if the bed were 
smooth clay, the precious metal might all be carried off. 
Quicksilver is not used in the ground-sluice. After the dirt 
has all been put through the ground-sluice, it is cleaned up in a 
short board-sluice, or a tom. 

190. Jjong Torn. — The tom or long tom, an instrument ex- 
tensively used in the Californian mines in 1851 and 1852, but 
12"^' 



258 KESOUKCES OF CALIFOR^^IA. 

now rarely seen, is a wooden trough about twelve feet long, 
eighteen inches wide at the upper end, and widening at the 
lower to thirty inches, with sides eight inches high. It is used 
like a board-sluice, but has no riffle-bars, and at the lower end 
its bottom is of sheet-iron, perforated with holes half an inch 
in diameter. This sheet-iron is turned up at the lower end, so 
that the water never runs over there, but always drops down 
through the perforated sheet-iron or riddle, into a little rifile- 
box, contiuning transverse riffle-bars. A stream of water of 
about ten inches makes a "tom-head" — or the amount con- 
sidered necessary for a torn — through the torn, which has a 
grade similar to that of a board-sluice. The dirt is thrown in 
at the head of the torn, and a man is constantly employed in 
moving the dirt with a shovel, throwing back such pieces of 
clay as are not dissolved, to the head of the torn, and throw- 
ing out stones. From two to four men can work with a torn; 
but the amount of dirt that can be washed is not half that of 
a sluice. The torn may be used to advantage in diggings 
where the amount of pay-dirt is small and the gold coarse. 
The riffle-box contains quicksilver, and as the dirt in it is kept 
loose bv the water fallins^ down on it from the riddle above, a 
large part of the gold is caught ; but where the particles are 
fine, much must be lost. 

§ 191. Cradle. — The rocker or cradle is still less than the 
tom and inferior in capacity. It bears some resemblance in 
shape and size to a child's cradle, and restg upon similar rockers. 
The cradle-box is about forty inches long, twenty wdde, and 
f Hir high, and it stands with the upper end about two feet 
higher than the lower end, which is open so that the tailings 
can run out. On the upper end of the cradle-box stands a 
hopper or riddle-box twenty inches square with sides four 
inches high. The bottom of this riddle-box is of sheet-iron, 
perforated with holes half an inch in diameter. The riddle- 
box is not nailed to the cradle-box, but can be lit\ed off with- 
out difficulty. Under the riddle is an "apron" of wood or^ 
cloth, fastened to the sides of the cradle-box and sloping down 



MINING. 259 

to the upper end of it. Across tlie bottom of tlic cradle-box 
are two rifHe-bars about an inch square, one in the middle, the 
other at the end of the box. The dirt is shovelled into the 
hopper, the " cradler" sits down beside his machine, and while 
with one hand with a ladle he pours water from a pool at his 
side upon the dirt, with the other he rocks the cradle. With 
the water and the motion the dirt is dissolved, and carried, 
down through the rid<Ue, falling upon the apron which carries 
it to the head of the cradle-box, whence it runs downward 
and out, leaving its gold, black sand, and heavier particles of 
sand and gravel behind the riftle-bars. The man who rocks a 
cradle learns to appreciate the fact, that the " golden sands" 
of California are not pure sand, but are often extremely tough 
clay, a hopperful of which must be shaken about for ten. 
minutes before it will dissolve under a constant pouring of 
water. Many large stones are found in the pay-dirt. Such 
as give an unpleasant shock to the cradle, as they roll from 
side to side of the riddle-box are pitched out by hand, and 
after a glance to see that no gold sticks to their sides, are 
tlirown away ; but the smaller ones are left until the hopper- 
ful has been washed, so that nothing but clean stones remain 
in the riddle, and then the cradler rises from his seat, lifts up 
his hopper, and with a jerk throws all the stones out. The 
water and the rocking are both necessary. Without the 
water, the dirt could not be washed ; and without the rocking, 
the dirt would dissolve very slowly, and the gold would 
most of it be lost. The rocking keeps the dirt in the bottom 
of the cradle more or less loose, so that the particles of 
gold can sink down in it, whereas if the cradle stood still 
the sand there would almost immediately pack down into a 
hard floor, over which the gold would run almost as readi- 
Jy as over a board. The whole business of washing with a 
cradle is a repetition of the process already described— some 
dirt, about one third or one-fourth of what the hopper would 
hold, if full, is put into the hopper, and while the cradle is 
rocked with one hand, the other pours in the water. The 



260 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

cradle is cleaned irp two or four times in a day. The clean- 
ing up is done by lifting the hopper, taking out the apron, 
scraping up all the dirt in the bottom of the cradle with an 
iron spoon, putting it into a pan and washing out the dirt, so 
that only the gold will be left. This last process is called 
panning out, and will be described in the next section. Most 
of the gold collects above the upper riffle-bar, including all the 
larger lumps. If the apron be of rough woollen cloth, some of 
the fine gold will be caught there. In diggings where the 
gold is very fine, the hopper is sometime? placed over the 
lower end of the cradle, and the apron is made twice as long, 
and with a lower inclination than in the more common form 
of the rocker. The water for the cradle should be supplied by 
a little ditch, with a reservoir at the head of the cradle, to 
contain five or six gallons. The dipper should be of tin, 
shaped like a basin, hold about a gallon when full, and have a 
handle an inch and a half in diameter, and eight inches long. 
The difterence of height between the upper and lower ends of 
the cradle should not be more than two inches : a steeper in- 
clination will make the current running through it too strong, 
and the gold will be carried ofi"; and, on the other hand, if 
the cradle be nearer a level it will be hard to rock, and the 
dirt in the bottom will pack more raj^idly. The amount of dirt 
that can be washed in a day with a cradle, varies from one to 
three cubic yards. The dirt is usually shovelled into a pan or 
bucket, from which it is thrown into the hopper. The miners 
usually measure the amount of dirt washed by the number of 
"pans." One man working alone with a cradle ought to 
wash from seventy-five to one hundred and fifty pans in a day, 
and two men will wash twice as much. A pan may contain 
one-third or one-half of a cubic foot. Two men can work more 
conveniently with the rocker than one. There is enough work 
to give constant employment to a cradler and a shoveller. The 
latter has a couple of buckets or pans, which he fills alter- 
nately, always keeping one full and near the cradler, so that 
without moving his feet he can pick it up and empty it into 



MINING. ^ 261 

tlie ri(.l(lle-box. If tlie rocker have only one man, he must 
stop rocking after washing every i)an and get more dirt. This 
delay is injurious to the process of washing, because it allows 
the dirt in the bottom of the cradle to harden and pack, and 
Bome gold is always lost as a consequence. If the dirt and 
water be convenient not more than two men can work to a 
profit with a rocker. But sometimes it happens that water 
cannot be led to the claim, and in such case the dirt must be 
carried to the water, a greater weight of which is used than 
of dirt. At least three times as much water as dirt is required 
for washing. If the distance from the hole to the water be 
not over ten or twenty feet, the miners will usually carry the 
dirt in buckets ; if farther they will use wheelbarrows ; and 
sometimes for greater distances pack-mules or wagons. The 
greater the distance, the more the men required for carrying 
the dirt. Sometimes, too, it happens that the claim is troubled 
by water, and then one man may be constantly employed in 
balino;. 

It is of great importance in mining with the cradle, to have 
the cradle placed within four or five feet of the hole from 
which the pay-dirt is obtained, and to have a good supply of 
water at the head of the cradle, and then to have a good de- 
scent below the cradle, so that the tailings may all be carried 
away by the water, so as not to accumulate. The rocker 
Avashes about one-half the amount of dirt that can be washed 
by an equal number of men with the tom, one-fourth of what 
can be washed with the sluice, and one-hundredth of the 
amount that can be washed with the hydraulic process ; but it 
is peculiarly fitted for some kinds of diggings. Many little 
gullies, containing coarse gold in their beds, cannot obtain 
water for washing except during rains, and then only for a few 
days at a time. In these gullies the cradle can be used to the 
best advantage, for it can easily be transported, and it is very 
good for saving coarse gold. While diit that would pay 
from ten to twenty-five cents, was abundant at the surface of 
the earth in the Californian mines, the cradle was extensively 



262 BESO FECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

used, but now it has been abandoned by the whites, and is left 
to the Chinamen, who think themselves doing well if they make 
seventy-five cents or one dollar per day. 

The great difficulty in mining with the cradle, is that the 
sand will " pack," or make a hard mass on a level with the 
top of the riffle-bars, and the gold then is lost. So long as the 
cradle is in motion the dirt does not J3ack, but when the rock- 
ing ceases, the mass hardens in a few minutes. If the miner 
leaves his cradle standing for fifteen minutes, he stirs up the 
dirt with his spoon before commencing again to wash. One 
device to prevent packing is to put a little block imder each 
end of the rockers, so that at the end of every motion the cradle 
receives a shock. Quicksilver is sometimes used in cradles, 
but not usually. 

§ 192. jP«?i. — The pan is used in all branches of gold min- 
ing, either as an instrument for washing, or as a receptacle for 
gold, amalgam, or rich dirt. It is made of stiif tin or sheet- 
iron, with a flat bottom about a foot across, and with sides six 
inches high, rising at an angle of forty-five degrees. A little 
variation in the size or shape of the pan will not injure its 
value for washing. Sheet-iron is preferable to tin, because it 
is usually stronger and does not amalgamate with mercury. 
The pan is the simplest of all instruments used for washing 
auriferous dirt. Some dirt, not enough to fill it full, is put in, 
and the pan is then put under water. The water ought to be 
not more than a foot deep, so that the pan mny rest on the 
liottom, while the miner inserts his fingers in and under the 
dirt and lifts it up a little, so that the whole mass is wet. If 
the Avater be deep, the pan may be held in one hand while the 
other is used to stir up the dirt, but it is more convenient to 
take both. The dirt having been filled with water, the miner 
catches the pan at the sides, raises that part toward his body, and 
lowers the outer edge a little, Jind commences to shake the pan 
from side to side, holding it so that all the dirt is underwater, 
and so that a little of the dirt can escape over the outer edge. 
The earthy part of the dirt is rapidly dissolved by the water, 



MINING. 263 

assisted by the shaking of the pan and the rolling of the 
gravel from side to side, and forms a mud which runs out while 
clean water runs in. The light sand flows out with the thin 
mud, while the lumps of tough clay and the large stones remain. 
The stones collect on the top of the clay, and they are scraped 
together with the fingers and thrown out. This process con- 
tinues, the pan being gradually raised in the water, and its 
outer edge depressed, until all the earthy matter has been dis- 
solved, and that as well as the stones swept away by the 
water, while the gold remains at the bottom. Panning is not 
difiicult, but it requires practice to learn the degree of shaking 
which dissolves the dirt and throws out the stones most rapidly 
without losing the gold. If the shaking be too mild and slow, 
the process consumes too much time ; whereas if it be too 
rapid and violent, the gold is carried off with the stones. 
Sometimes the pan is shaken so that the dirt receives a rotary 
motion. This is the most rapid method of washing dirt, but 
also the most dangerous. The pan must always be used in 
cleaning up the dirt which collects in the cradle, in prospect- 
ing, and frequently in washing small quantities of dirt col- 
lected in other kinds of placer mining. Amalgam can be sepa- 
rated from dirt by washing, almost as well as gold. In panning 
out, it frequently happens that considerable amounts of black 
sand containing fine particles of gold are obtained, and this 
sand is so heavy that it cannot be separated from the gold by 
washing, while it is easily separated by that process -from 
gravel, stones, and common dirt. The black sand is dried, 
and a small quantity of it is placed in a " blower," a shallow tin 
dish open at one end. The miner then holding the pan with 
the open end from him, blows out the sand, leaving the par- 
ticles of gold. He must blow gently, just strong enough to 
blow out the sand, and no stronger. From time to time he 
must shake the blower so as to change the position of the 
particles, and bring all the sand in the range of his breath. 
The gold cannot be cleansed perfectly in this manner, but the 
uand contains iron, and the little of it remaining is easily re- 



204 KESOUKCES OF CALIF OEXIA. 

moved by a magnet. The blower should be very smooth, and 
made of either tin, brass, or copper. 

§ 193. Dry 'Wasldng. — Dry washing is a method of win- 
nowing gold from dirt. In many parts of the mining districts 
of California, water cannot be obtained daring the summer for 
mining purposes. The miner tlierefore manages to wash his 
dirt without water. He takes only rich dirt, and putting it on 
a rawhide, he pulverizes all the lumps and picks out the large 
stones. He then with a large flat basin throws the dirt up 
into the air, catches it as it comes down, throws it up again, 
and repeats this operation until nothing but the gold remains. 
Of course a pleasant breeze, that will carry away the dust, is 
a orreat assistance to the operation. Sometimes two men have 
a hide or a blanket, with which they throw up the dirt. The 
process is very similar to the ancient method of separating 
grain from chaff. Tlie miner w^ho devotes himself to dry 
washing must be very particular to take only rich dirt, so he 
scrapes the bed-rock carefully. He never digs very deep — not 
more then twenty feet ; and when he goes beyond seven or 
eight feet he " coyotes," or burrows after the pay-dirt. He 
may coyote into the side of a hill, or sink a shaft and coyote 
in all directions from it. This style of mining is named from 
the resemblance of the holes to the burrows of the coyote, or 
Californian wolf. Coyoting is not confined to the dry wash- 
ing, but is used also by miners washing with the pan and 
cradle. One of the Congressmen elected some years ago to 
represent California at Washington, was a miner at the time 
of his nomination, and was so fond of coyoting, that he was 
generally known as " Coyote Joe." 

§ 194. Dnj Digging. — Dry digging is that mining where 
the miner, after using the shovel to strip off the barren dirt, 
scrapes the pay-dirt over with a knife, picking out the particles 
of ffold as he comes to them, and throwincr awnv the earthy 
matter. This is a slow process, but in rich placers may be 
profitable. The miner is, of course, particular to examine all 
the crevices in the bed-rock ; and if the material be slate, he 



MINING. 265 

digs up part of it, to see whether the gold has not found its 
way into cracks scarcely perceptible on the surface. " Dry 
digging," as a mode of mining, must not be confounded with 
" dry diggings," a kind of mining-ground which has been de- 
scribed near the beginning of this chapter. 

Knife-mining differs a Httle from dry digging. In the latter, 
a shovel is used to strip off" the barren dirt ; whereas the knife- 
mining is practised in those places where the gold is deposited 
in crevices in rocks along the banks of streams, without any 
covering of barren dirt, so that the knife alone is used in scra- 
ping out the dirt; and afterward the dirt, being placed in a 
pan, may be washed in water, which is never used in dry dig- 
ging- 

§ 195. Puddling-Hox, — The puddling-box is a rough wood- 
en box, about a foot deep and six feet square, and is used for 
dissolving very tough clay. The clay is thrown into the box, 
with water, and a miner stirs the stuff with a hoe until the 
clay is all thoroughly dissolved, when he takes a plug from an 
auger-hole about four inches from the bottom, and lets the thin 
solution of the clay run off, w^hile the heavier material, inclu- 
ding the gold, remains at the bottom. He then puts in the 
plug again, fills up the box wdth water, throws in more clay, 
and repeats the process again and again until night, when he 
cleans up with a cradle or pan. The puddling-box is used 
only in small mining oj^eratious, and never with the sluice, or 
in hydraulic claims. 

§ 196. Quicksilver-Machine. — The quicksilver-machine, or 
Burke rocker, is a cradle about seven feet long, two feet wide, 
and two feet high. In the bottom are a number of compart- 
ments, all containing quicksilver. One man rocks the machine 
without cessation. A constant stream of water pours into the 
machine at its head. The riddle extends the whole length of 
the machine ; and the stones, after being washed clean, fall off 
the riddle at the lower end. One man is employed constantly 
working with a shovel to keep the dirt on the riddle under the 
stream of water, and in throwing off the big stones. K the 



266 RESOUKCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

pay-dirt is very conveiiient, two men can shovel enough to 
keep the machine in operation. The Burke rocker was exten- 
sively used in Califoraia eight and ten years ago, but now it is 
a great rarity. 

§ 197. TunneJ-Mlaing. — A tunnel, in Californian mhiing, is 
an adit or drift enteriug a hill-side, or running out from a shaft. 
Mining-tunnels are usually nearly horizontal — those entering 
hill-sides having a slight ascent, for the double purpose of 
draining the mine, and to facilitate the removal of the pay- 
dirt. In a few hills the tunoels ran downward at an angle of 
twenty degrees or more, to avoid veins or ledges of rock, 
which would have to be blasted through if the tunnel wero 
cut horizontally ; but this can only be done with safety in hills 
which are drained by older horizontal tunnels. 

The mining-tunnel does not run through a hill, but only into 
it. The leno'th of tunnels varies c^reatlv ; the lono^est are about 
a mile. The usual height is seven feet, the width five feet. 
Ordinarily the top must be supported by timbers, to prevent 
it from falling in, and not unfrequently the sides must also be 
protected by boards. The cost of cutting a tunnel varies from 
two to forty dollars a longitudinal foot, according to the nature 
of the ground, the cost of getting thnbers, &c. Timnels are 
usually made by companies of eight or ten men, of whom one- 
half may be merchants, lawyers, physicians, or office-holders, 
and the remainder laboring miners. The latter class do the 
work ; the former furnish provisions and tools, and a certain 
amount of cash weekly until the pay-dirt is reached. Two or 
three men work at a time cutting a tunnel ; one or two to dig 
the dirt ; and one or two to haul it out. The dirt of the first 
fifty yards is hauled out in a wheelbarrow ; beyond that dis- 
tance a little tram-way or railroad is laid down, and the dirt is 
hauled out in cars, pushed by the miners. It is not customaiy 
to use horses. It is common to have two relays of laborers — 
one set working from noon to midnight, the other from mid- 
night to noon. Work in a tunnel is as pleasant at night as in 
the da}time. "When a company is rich, or has many laborers, it 



MINING. 267 

may have three relays, each to work eight hours in the twenty- 
four. 

It is not nncommon for two companies, owning adjacent 
claims in a hill, to unite and cut a tunnel on joint account along 
the dividing line. They go in until they reach the pay-dirt, 
and then a surveyor is employed to run the line between their 
claims, and the tunnel is continued through the pay-du't. The 
dirt from the tunnel is washed for the joint account of the two 
companies. After the dividing line has been established, each 
company keeps on its o^^ti side, and each has its time to use 
the tram-way. Tliey may also have a joint-stock sluice at the 
mouth of the tunnel — one company having the privilege of 
using the sluice one week, and the other the next. All tho 
dirt brought out in a week can readily be washed in a day. 
The work of taking out the pay-dirt after the main tunnel has 
been cut, is called " drifting ;" and the holes made by the men 
engaged in it are termed " drifts." The drifts are usually not 
so high as the tunnels. The large stones and barren dirt ob- 
tained in the drifts are piled up here and there to sustain tho 
earth overhead. Sometimes wooden posts are likewise neces- 
sary. 

§ 198. Shafts. — Shafts are used in prospecting, and also in 
mining, where the claims are deep and cannot be reached by 
either the hydraulic process or the tunnel. The prospecting 
shaft is sometimes sunk into hills supposed to be auriferous, 
where the shaft is far less expensive than the tunnel. After 
the shaft demonstrates that the dirt is rich, and precisely the 
altitude at which it lies, a tunnel is cut to strike it. The shaft 
may be the cheaper for prospecting, but the tunnel is usually 
the cheaper if any large amount of dirt is to be taken out. 

The shaft is dug by one man in the hole, and one or two are 
employed at a windlass in hauling up the dirt. Mining-shafts 
in placer diggings are rarely over one hundred feet deep; but 
one was dug in Trinity county to the depth of six hundred feet, 
for the purpose of prospecting, but it found neither pay-dirt 
nor the bed-rock. 



268 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 199. Hivev-Mining . — rJiver-mining is mining for gold in 
the beds of rivers, below low-water mark. The only practi- 
cable method of doing this is by damming the stream, and 
taking the water out of its bed in a ditch or flume. It has 
been proposed by persons who never saw the mines, to get the 
gold by dredging, or with a diving-bell ; but such schemes are 
absurd in the eyes of miners. The rivers in which the gold is 
found are mountain-torrents, in Tvhich a canoe can scarcely 
float in summer, much less a dredging-machine ; and any large 
scoop Avorking under water would miss the crevices and cor- 
ners in the rocks, where most of the gold is found. As the 
water is very seldom more than a couple of feet deep, a diving- 
bell would be of little service. The flume, the ditch, and the 
wing-dam, are the chief tasks of the river-miner. The ditch is 
rarely used, because the banks of the mining-streams are usu- 
ally so steep, high, rocky, and crooked, that a flume is cheaper. 
The wing-dam is not often used, because the river-beds are in 
most places too narrow. The flume is almost universally em- 
ployed. 

The work of river-minino: can be done onlv durinsr the sum- 
mer and fall, while the water is low, and while the miner can 
have confidence that it will not rise. It may be as low in Jan- 
uary as in August, but the winter is the season of rains ; and 
when the flood comes, it sweeps dams, flumes, and every thing 
before it. If the dam and flume be commenced too early in 
the season, they may be carried ofl" before they are finished ; 
and it frequently happens that they are destroyed in the fall 
just when the miners are commencing to reap the reward of 
their summer's labor. 

River-mining has many disadvantages, as compared with 
other branches of mining. Tlie miner cannot work at it more 
than half the year ; he cannot prospect the dirt which is hid- 
den under water ; he must erect expensive dams and flumes, 
which can be used for only a few months ; and then he is ex- 
posed to floods which may come and destroy all his work 
before he has commenced to wash. These disadvantages, and 



MINING. 269 

the exhaustion of most of the river-diggings in the state, have 
almost put an end to river-mining in CaUfornia. In a few 
cases, extensive fluming enterprises have proved profitable; 
but, as a general rule, river-mining in this state has cost more 
than it has produced. A river is seldom flumed for less than 
three hundred yards, and sometimes for a mile; and the lum- 
ber and labor required to make so long a flume, and one large 
enough to hold all the water of a river, are very expensive. 
The dam will always leak, and water will run into the bed 
from the adjacent hills and mountains, and this water must be 
lifted out by pumps driven by wheels placed in the flume. 
The river-beds are full of large rocks, weighing from one to 
ten tons, and these must be moved by machinery, to allow (he 
dirt to be taken out. 

Itiver-mining is now never undertaken by an individual, but 
always by large associations, generally called "fluming com- 
panies," sometimes composed of miners exclusively, sometimes 
of miners and all the principal business-men living near the 
place where the work is to be done. The lawyers, doctors, 
and oflice-holders, pay their assessments in cash; the mer- 
chants furnish provisions, the lumbermen supply lumber, and 
the miners make the dam, and help the carpenters build the 
flume. 

§ 200. Jjeach-Mi7iinQ. — Beach-mining is the business of 
washing the sands of the ocean-beach. Between Point Men- 
docino, in California, and the mouth of the Umpqua River, in 
Oregon, the beach-sand contains gold, and in some places it is 
very rich. The beach is narrow, and lies at the foot of a bluff 
bank of auriferous sand. In times of storm, the waves wash 
against this bank, undermine it, sweep away the pieces which 
tumble down, leaving the gold on the beach. The gold is in 
very fine particles, and it moves with the heavier sand, which 
alters its position frequently under the influence of the waves 
and surf. One day, the beach will have six feet depth of sand ; 
the next, there will be nothing save bare rocks. The sand 
differs greatly in richness at various times : one day, it will be 



270 KESOTJECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

ftill of golden specks ; a few days later, at the same place it 
will be barren. The sand in the mean tune has been moved 
by the waves, and replaced by other sand. 

It is a very difficult matter to know where the sand is rich 
and where it is not. The companies employed in mining on 
the beach number about ten men ; and there is a foreman who 
rides out early every morning, following the beach about two 
miles to the northward and two miles to the southward of the 
camp, for the purpose of finding where the sand is the best. 
So changeable is the sand, that a new examination is made 
everyday; and only three or four men are supposed to be 
good judges of the quality of sand, from its appearance. 

When the foreman has selected a place, he orders all the 
men to it, and they go with twenty pack-mules, which carry 
the sand in alforjas, or rawhide sacks, to the place of washing, 
which is up on the bluff, probably a mile or more distant from 
the spot where the sand is obtained. It happens occasionally 
that the foreman rides long distances on the beach, and some- 
times he will order the sand to be obtained ten miles from the 
washing-place. The sand must, of course, be very rich, to pay i 
for such transportation, but the beach-sand at times in the sun- 
light is said to be actually dazzling yellow with gold. The 
purpose of going upon the bluff to wash it is to get fresh water 
for washing ; fox the sea-water is not so good, nor can it be 
obtained conveniently. The richest dirt is that the farthest 
down on the beach, so still weather and low tide are the best 
times for getting it. When a rich place is discovered low 
down on the beach, great exertions are made to get as much 
of the sand as possible before the tide rises. When high tide 
and storm come together, little can be done. The sand, hav- 
ing been separated from all clay and soluble matter by the 
action of the sea, is very easily washed, and all collected in a 
month can be washed in two days in a sluice. 

§ 201. jSIining-Dltches. — The placer-mines of Caliibrnia 
would yield very little gold, were it not for the numerous 
ditches which supply them with water for washing. The au- 



MINING. 271 

rifcroiis districts are very dry in summer, and in some places 
tliere is not a spring nor a brook Avithin many miles. The 
^artificial ditch supplies the want. The ditches are made by 
large companies, which sell the water by the "inch." An 
inch of water is as much as will run out of an orifice an inch 
square, with the water standing six or seven inches deep in 
the flume over the orifice. The depth of water over the orifice 
is called the " head." The orifice is usually two inches high, 
and as long as necessary to give the amount of water desired. 
Nobody wants less than ten or twelve inches for mining: a 
"•sluice-head" is about eighteen inches; a "hydraulic head" is 
from forty to two hundred inches. The water, however, is 
not measured accurately. Of course, the amount which runs 
through the orifice will depend to a considerable extent upon 
the " head," which is usually greater in the morning than at 
night. At sunrise there may be fifteen inches head, and at 
sunset only three. The water collects during the night, and 
is exhausted during the day. The price of water is in no 
place less than ten cents an inch per day ; in some places it is 
forty cents ; the average is about twenty cents. 

Many of these ditches are extensive enterprises, and have 
cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. When they cross ra- 
vines and valleys, large flumes — ^.wonders of carpentry — must 
be built. Some of these are two hundred feet high and a mile 
long, and so large that a horse and wngon can be driven 
through thern. In all, save length and durability, they are as 
w^onderful as the great Roman aqueducts, whose tall ruins still 
stand in tlie Campagna, near the Eternal City. In some cases 
iron tubes have been used, and, although they are very expen- 
sive, yet they may pay for themselves, by preventing evapora- 
I tion, leaking, and soaking, which take away much of the water 
from flumes and ditches. 

§ 202. Pi'ospectlng. — "Prospecting" is the search for gold. 
The instruments used by the prospector for placer-mines are 
usually the pan, pick, and shovel. He should be familiar with 
the general laws of the distribution of gold, and then try the 



272 RESOUIiCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

dirt in the most favorable places. If there is any gold in a 
district, he can scarcely fiiil to find sj^ecks of it by washing dirt 
from the bed-rock in the ravines, and in bars. The existence 
of gold in a district having been established, close observation 
will suggest to the prospector where he may reasonably expect 
to find the best diggings. It is usually found that placer-gold 
is collected in those places where, if he had been familiar with 
the ancient topography of the country, he should have had 
reason to suppose that it would be. 

§ 203. Quartz Mining. — Quartz mining differs much from 
placer mining. For the former, more capital, more experience, 
more complicated machinery and richer material are required 
than for the latter. The placer miner throws the dirt into the 
water, which then does the work ; whereas the pulverizing of 
rock is a nice operation, requiring constant attention. Quartz 
requires a mill and water-power ; placer dirt is washed in a 
simple sluice. Dirt containing ten cents in the cubic yard may 
pay the hydrauhc miner, but the quartz miner must have a 
hundred times as much in a cubic yard of vein-stone, or he 
cannot work. The placer gold, when freed from the baser 
material surrounding it, is much of it in coarse particles, which 
are easily caught by their specific gravity ; the quartz gold 
must be reduced to a fine powder before it can be set free from 
its gangue, and with the fineness of the particles increases 
the difticulty of catching them. 

Auriferous quartz lodes are often found by accident. Not 
unfrequently it happens that a rich streak of pay-dirt in a placer 
claim is followed up to the quartz vein from which it came. 
AVhile miners are out walking or hunting, they occasionally 
will come upon lodes in which the gold is seen sjxirkling. 
Some good leads have been found by men employed in making 
roads and cutting ditches. The quartz might be covered with 
soil, but the pick and shovel revealed its position and wealth. 
In Tuolumne county in 1858, a hunter shot a grizzly bear on 
the side of a steep canon, and the animal tumbling down, was 
caught by a projecting point of rock. The hunter followed 



MINIXG. 273 

his gfime, and while skinning the animal, discovered that the 
point of rock was auriferous quartz. In Mariposa county in 
1855, a robber attacked a miner, and the latter saw the rock 
beliind his assailant sparkle in the sunlight, at a si)ut where a 
bullet struck a w.all of rock. He killed the robber, and found 
that the rock was gold-bearing quartz. In Nevada county 
several years ago, a couple of unfortunate miners who had 
jirepared to leave California, and were out on a drunken frolic, 
started a large boulder down a steep hill. On its Avay down, 
it struck a brown rock and broke a portion of it off — exposing 
a vein of white quartz which proved, to be auriferous, induced 
the disappointed miners to remain some months longer in the 
state, and paid them well for remaining. Science and experi- 
ence do not appear to give much assistance in prospecting for 
quartz lodes. Chemists, geologists, mineralogists, and old 
miners, have not done better than ignorant men and new- 
comers. Most of the best veins have been discovered by poor 
and ignorant men. Not one has been found by a man of high 
education as a miner, or geologist. No doubt geological 
knowledge is valuable to a miner, and it should assist him in 
prospecting ; but it has never yet enabled any body to find a 
valuable claim. 

§ 204. Distribution of Gold m Quartz. — The rich quartz- 
veins of California extend from Kern River to the Siskiyou, 
are found on hills, in canons and in vales. They are at least 
two thousand feet above the level of the sea, and not more 
than ten thousand feet above it. Their course is generally 
from north-northwest to south-southeast, and they dip steeply 
to the eastward, sometimes being nearly perpendicular. They 
differ in thickness from a line to sixty feet. Quartz veins are 
very numerous in most of the mining districts, so the task is 
not to find the veins, but rather to find those which arc gold- 
bearing. It is supposed that nearly all large veins come to 
the surface of the bed-rock or " country ;" but many of them 
are covered with soil and thus are hidden. Hidden veins are 
called " blind ;" those plainly visible on the ^ surface are called 
13 



^'7Jt RESOURCES OF CALIFOIINIA. 

*'croppings veins," because their position is shown by the out- 
croi)})ings. Experience has not ascertained wjiether large or 
small veins are more hkely to contain gold. It is found in 
both. The porous quartz, or that containing many cavities, is 
more frequently found auriferous and richly auriferous, than 
the very comj:)act quartz. The best gold-bearing veins are 
usually yellowish or brownish in tinge, near the surface at 
least ; but very rich specimens are found in "white and bluish- 
white rock. Most quartz veins in California contain a little 
gold ; the metal seems to have been distributed most lavishly, 
but unfortunately in nine-tenths of the veins, the proportion 
of metal is too small to pay. Most of the large veins are sup- 
posed to run for miles upon miles, though they can rarely be 
traced clearly on the suiface for more than a furlong. The 
auriferous veins vary much in richness. No vein is wrought 
for more than a few hundred feet. Beyond that, it is either 
too poor to pay, or the vein is hidden. Some persons have 
supposed that there is one great gold-bearing quartz vein run- 
ning along the side of the Sierra Nevada, from Mariposa to 
Plumas county, and that many of the richest claims are really 
in this one vein ; but this is a supposition which cannot be 
proved now. Sometimes a vein seems to spread out and di- 
vide into a number of smaller veins, all of which afterward 
unite again. These points of junction, and the narrower places 
in tlie ^ein, are usually richer than otlier parts of it. When 
two veins cross each other, one may be auriferous on one side 
of the intersection and not on the other ; but in this case the 
other vein will be auriferous on both sides. It is as though 
they were streams, one rich, the other barren, and that after 
- meeting, the wealth of the one Avas divided between them. 
It is a general rule that metalliferous veins running parallel 
with the strata of the bed-roc^v or country are not extensive. 
In fact they are rather deposits than veins, and though often 
extremely rich are soon exhausted, while the lodes which run 
across the stratification run far and deep, and have a regular 
and straight course and dip. Lodes lying between two difterent 



MiNiisrG. 275 

^inds of rock, are usually richer tliaii those which have the 
same kind of rock on both sides. Thus it is said that the richest 
veins of auriferous quartz in California, have been discovered 
at the intersection of trap and serpentine, and the richest places 
in veins are where they cross from one kind of bed-rock 
into another. The richest part of a lode of auriferous quartz 
is almost invariably on the lower side of the vein, near the 
foot- wall. All these are facts to be remembered by the pro- 
spector as a guide, and an assistance to him in his search for 
a rich gold-bearing vein. If the lode is covered with earthy 
matter, he may sometimes trace its course by the difference in 
the color of the dirt and stones over it from that elsewhere. 
When tlie prospector finds dirt and stones on a vein, evidently 
disintegrated portions of it, he should wash some of the dirt 
in a pan, and if he finds no gold, there is a strong presumption 
that the vein is barren. 

§ 205. Prospecting Quart?. Rock. — After finding a gold- 
bearing vein, the question arises Avhether it will pay. Great 
sums are lost in gold-mining countries by injudicious invest- 
ments in mills and machinery to work the aiM'iferous rock, and 
persons going into the business should be particularly careful 
not to commit this great error. The business of quartz min- 
ing has great profits but also great pecuniary dangers con- 
nected with it. It is rarely that all the rock of a vein will 
pay for working. In some lodes, the vein-stone will average 
one hundred dollars to the ton, for all the stone found in a cer- 
tain part of the lode, but beyond that the rock may be poor 
or worthless. Picked specimens may be worth several thou- 
sand dollars to the ton, but perhaps not more than a ton of 
such specimens has been obtained in the best lode ever opened 
in the state. The most profitable lodes are those which have 
a large supply of rock, easily to be obtained, and all of it yielding 
something above the cost of working. The common method 
of ascertaining whether rock will pay, is to pulverize a little of 
it and wash it in a horn spoon. In taking out the quartz rock 
in large lodes, it is important to take out only that which will 



276 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

pay, and to determine this, the superintendent of tlie quarry-men 
must occasionally test the vein-stone. He takes several little 
pieces of it, average specimens, places them on a hard, smooth, 
flat stone about a foot square, on which he crushes them with a 
stone muller four inches square, and then by rubbing with the 
muller he reduces them to a fine powder. He has a horn 
spoon, made of a large ox-horn, with a bowl about three inches 
wide and eight inches long, being merely one-half of the horn 
in its natural shape. With this spoon he washes out the pow- 
der in water, and if he does not find a speck of gold or a 
" color," as it is called, in a pound of the rock, he infers that 
it will not pay. The three principal quartz mines in the state 
are those of Fremont in jNlarijiosa county, of the Allison com- 
pany in Nevada county, and of the Sierra Butte company in 
Sierra county. The first has produced $75,000 in a month, the 
second $60,000, and the third $20,000, but the average is prob- 
ably thirty per cent, less, and the expenses about thirty pei 
cent, of the total product. The average yield of the Fremont 
rock is fourteen dollars to the ton, of the Sierra Butte rock 
eighteen dollars, and that of the Allison company, according 
to report, has for more than a year at a time been one hundred 
dollars per ton. The cost of working quartz rock, including 
quarrying, crushing, and amalgamating, is in the best mills 
from five to ten dollars per ton. The width of the vein, the 
softness of the rock, the amount of work done, and the skill 
and industry of the workmen, all are items of great importance 
in estimating the cost of quartz-mining. It is a business which 
the owner of the mill ought to understand. The cost of 
quarrying common quartz rock is about two dollars per ton, 
that is, for mill-owners that understand the business and super- 
intend the labor themselves. "When given out by the job, it 
usually costs more. When quartz is crushed in a custom mill, 
that is, a mill built to crush for all applicants, the cost is rarely 
less than five dollars per ton, and in Washoe, the price was at 
one time thirty dollars per ton ; but in the large mills, where 
many tons are crushed every day, is about two dollars per ton. 



MINING. 211 

§ 206. The Divining Rod. — In prospecting for auriferous 
quartz, use is sometimes made of the divining rod, a practice 
not without credit with some good miners. The rod is a fork 
of a green hazel-bush, shaped like a V, with the arms about a 
foot long. The prospector holds the end of an arm in each 
hand, with the point of the V directed forward horizontally, 
and as he walks along, the point turns down whenever he 
comes over a metalliferous vein, metallic body or water. It is 
supposed that very few persons can use the divining rod effec- 
tually ; for most men it refuses to turn. It is used in nearly 
every civilized country, especially by miners, and is generally 
considered superstitious, because it is employed by ignorant 
people, and because there has been no generally accepted 
scientific explanation of the manner in which a stick could be 
influenced by a metal hidden under ground. A scientific ex- 
planation of the principle of the divining rod has been offered 
to the world, by Baron Reichenbach (see page sixty of his 
Odic-Ma(jnetic Letters., translated by John S. Hittell). 

§ 207. Quarrying Quartz. — The quarrying of quartz rock 
differs little from the quarrying of other metalliferous vein- 
stones. The lode descends steeply, and the excavation mnst 
follow its course. Sometimes the quartz is so soft that it ma 
easily be loosened with the pick. The hai-der rock is blasted. 
Soft quartz is that which is penetrated by numerous cavities, 
though the lumps between the cavities may be very bard. 
Some quartz on exposure to the air crumbles into sand, though 
hard when first taken from the vein. In narrow^ lodes, some 
of the wall-rock must be cut away to get room for the work- 
men. In wide lodes, that part of the vein-stone which does 
not pay is left. Sometimes the gold from the lode penetrates 
a little way into the foot-wall, and in' that case the quarryin"- 
must extend beyond the vein-stone. ' The quartz loosened in 
the vein, must either be hoisted perpendicularly in a bucket 
with a windlass, or be hauled out through a tunnel. The com- 
mon method is to hoist the rock with a whidlass. Most of the 
vems are in such places that shafts are more easily dug than 



278 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

tunnels. After the excavation has extended twenty or thirty- 
feet below the surface, it is usual to dig a perpendicular shaft, 
so as to strike the vein sixty or seventy feet below the surface, 
and from this point the miner or " drifter" works upward, and 
as he loosens the rock it falls to the bottom of the shaft, where 
it is put in the bucket to be hoisted to the surface. Our quartz 
mines are generally in dry hills, so that they are not troubled 
much by water ; but there are a few shafts where steam-pumps 
are constantly at work to carry off the water. 

Occasionally the miners find small quantities of auriferous 
quartz which are so easily broken up, and the pieces of gold in 
which are so coarse, that after the rock has been pounded a 
little in a mortar, the metal can easily be picked out with the 
fingers. 

§ 208. Arastra. — Quartz is pulverized either in an arastra, 
or Chilean mill, or by stamps. 

The arastra is the simplest instrument for grinding aurifer- 
ous quartz. It is a circular bed of stone, from eight to twenty 
feet in diameter, on which the quartz is ground by a large 
stone dragged round and round by horse or mule power. 
There are two kinds of arastras, the rude or improved. The 
rude arastra is made with a pavement of unhewn flat stones, 
which are usually laid down in clay. The pavement of the 
improved arastra is, made of hewn stone, cut very accurately 
and laid down in cement. In the centre of the bed of the 
arastra is an upright post which turns on aj)ivot, and running 
through the post is a horizontal bar, projecting on each side to 
the outer edge of the pavement. Ou each arm of this bar is 
attached by a chain rt large flat stone or muller, weighing from 
three hundred to five hundred pounds. It is so hung that the 
forw^ard end is about an inch above the bed, and the hind end 
drags on the bed. A mule hitched to oue arm will drag two 
such mullers. In some arastras there are four mullers and two 
mules. Outside of the pavement is a wall of stone a foot high 
to keep the quartz within reach of the mullers. About four 
hundred pounds of quartz, previously broken into pieces about 



MINING. 279 

the size of a pigeon's egg, are called a " charge" for an arastra 
ten feet in diameter, and are put in at a time. The mule is 
started and in four or five hours the quartz is pulverized. 
Water is now poured in until the powder is thoroughly mixed 
with it, and the mass has the consistence of thick cream. Care 
is taken that the mixture be not too thin, for the thickness 
of it is important to the amalgamation. The paste being all 
right, some quicksilver (an ounce and a quarter of it for every 
ounce of gold in the quartz, and the amount of gold is guessed 
at from the appearance of the rock) is scattered over the aras- 
tra. The grinding continues for about two hours more, dur- 
ing which time it is supposed the quicksilver is divided up into 
very fine globules and mixed all through the paste (which is so 
stiff that the metal does not sink in it to the bottom), and that 
all the particles of gold are caught and amalgamated. The 
amalgamation having been completed, some water is let in 
three or four inches deep over the paste, and the mule is made 
to move slowly. The paste is thus dissolved in the water, and 
the gold, quicksilver, and amalgam have an opportunity to fall 
to the bottom. At the end of half an hour, or sooner, the 
thin mud of the arastra is allowed to run off, leaving the pre- 
cious material at the bottom. Another charge of broken 
quartz is now put in and the process is rei:)eated, and so on. 
The length of a " run," or the period from one cleaning up to 
another, varies much in different places. In the rude arastra 
a run is seldom less than a week, and sometimes three or four. 
The amalgam having settled down between the paving stones, 
the bed must be dug up and all the dirt between them carefully 
washed. In the improved arastra the paving fits so closely 
together, that the quicksilver and amalgam do not get down 
between them, but remain on the surface, and can readily be 
brushed up into a little pan, and therefore cleaning up is much 
less troublesome and is more frequently repeated than in the 
rude arastras; besides there is a greater need of frequent 
cleaning up in the improved arastras, because the amount of 
work done within a given time is usually greater. 



280 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

The arastra is a slow instrument^ but in some important re- 
spects it is superior to any other method of working auriferous 
quartz. It grinds the quartz well, is unsurpassable as an amal- 
gamator, is very cheap and simple, requires no chemical knowl- 
edge or peculiar mechanical skill in the work, requires but httle 
power, and very little water — all of them important consider- 
ations. In many places, the scarcity of water alone is enough 
to enable the arastra to pay a larger profit than any other 
method. Again, if a miner finds a rich spot in a lode, he may 
be doubtful as to the amount of paying rock which he can ob- 
tain. Such cases very frequently happen in California, and 
the arastra is just the thing for the case ; for then if the 
amount of paying rock is small, nothing is lost, whereas the 
erection of a stamping-mill would cost much time and money, 
and before it could get into smooth operation the rich rock 
would be exhausted, and the mill perhaps become worthless. 
No other simple process of amalgamation is equal to that of 
the arastra ; and it has on various occasions happened in 
California, that Mexicans making from fifty to sixty dollars 
per ton from quartz, have sold out to Americans who have 
erected large mills at great expense, with patent amalgama- 
tors, and have not been able to get more than ten or fifteen 
dollars from a ton. The arastra is sometimes used for amalga- 
mating tailings which have passed through stamping-mills. 

§ 209. Chilean 3Iill. — The Chilean mill has a circular bed 
like the arastra, but much smaller, and the quartz is crushed 
by two large stone wheels which roll round on their edges. 
In the centre of the bed is an upright post, the top of 
which serves as a pivot for the axle on which both of the 
stones revolve. A mule is usually hitched to the end of one 
of the axles. The methods of managing the rock and amalga- 
mating: with the Cliilean mill, are very similar to those of the 
arastra. The Chilean mill, however, is rarely used in Califor- 
nia ; the arastra being considered far preferable. 

§ 210. Stamjys. — Nine-tenths of the quartz crushed in Cali- 
fornia is pulverized by stamps, of which there are two kinds, 



MINING. 281 

the square and rotary. The square stamp has a perpendicular 
wooden shaft, six or eight feet long, and six or eight inches 
svjuare, with an iron shoe, weighing from a hundred to a 
thousand pounds. The wooden sliaft has a mortice in front 
near the top, and a cam on a revolving horizontal shaft enters 
this mortice at every revolution. When the cam slips out of 
the mortice, the stamp falls with all its weight upon tlie 
quartz in the " battery" or " stamping-box." The rotary 
stamp has a shaft of wrought iron about two inches in diam- 
eter, and just before faUing this shaft receives a whirling mo- 
tion, which is continued by the shoe as it strikes the quartz. 
The rotary stamp is considered superior to tlie squai'c, its ad- 
vantage being that it crushes more rock with the same power, 
that it crushes more witliin tlie same space, and that it wears 
away less of the shoe in proportion to the amount of rock 
crushed. There are usually half a dozen square stamps or 
more, standing side by side in a square-stamp mill, and these 
do not all fall at the same moment, but successively, running 
from the head to the foot of the " battery." The quartz is put 
in at the head of the battery and is gradually driven to the 
foot. The rotary stamps sometimes stand side by side, jlnd 
sometimes in a circle. The battery of both rotary and square 
stamps is surrounded by w^ire gauze, or a perforated iron 
plate, allowing the finely pulverized quartz to escape, and re- 
taining the coarser particles. Quartz is crushed wet and dry. 
In wet crushing a little stream of water runs into the battery 
on one side and escapes on the other, carrying all the fine 
quartz with it. 

§ 211. Separation. — After pulverization comes the separa- 
tion of the gold from the rocky portion of the powder. The 
means of separation are mechanical or chemical. The eliemical 
process is amalgamation ; the mqchanical are those wherein the 
gold is caught on a rough surface with the aid of its specific 
gravity. The chief reliance is upon amalgamation, and in some 
large quartz-mills mechanical appliances are not used at all for 
catching the particles of gold, but only for catching amalgam. 
13* 



282 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

The mechanical appliances used in quartz-mills in' separating 
the gold from the pulverized rock, are the blanket, the sluice, 
and the rawhide. > 

The blanket is a coarse, rough, gray blanket, which is laid 
down in a trough sixteen inches wide and six feet long. The 
pulverized quartz is carried over this by a stream of water, 
and the particles of gold are caught in the wool. The blanket 
is taken up and washed, at intervals depending upon the 
amount of gold deposited. In some mills where a large 
amount of rock is crushed, and where the powder is taken 
over the blanket before trying any other process of separation, 
the washing takes place every half-hour. In mills where the 
pulverized quartz is exposed to amalgamation first, the blanket 
may be washed three or four times a day. The washing is 
done in a vat, kept for that especial purpose. 

The sluice used in quartz-mills is similar to the jDlacer board- 
sluice, but the amount of matter to be washed is less, and there 
is no dirt to be dissolved, and there are no large stones, and 
therefore the sluice is not so large, so strong, or so steep in 
grade, as the placer-sluice, and the riffle-bars are not so deep. 
In some quartz-mill sluices there are transverse riffle-bars. K 
the quartz has much iron or copper pyi-ites, the sluice is used 
to collect this material and save it for separation at some future 
time. The pyrites ordinarily contains, or is accompanied by 
much gold, which it protects from amalgamation. This separiv 
tion of the pyrites from the pulverized rock is called " concen- 
trating the tailings," and the material collected is called " con- 
centrated tailings." In the sluices of some quartz-mills cast-iron 
riffle-bars are used ; cast in sections about fifteen inches square, 
and about an inch deep. Much study has been devoted to the 
subject of making these riffle-bars in such a manner that the 
dirt will not pack in them, but will always remain loose, and 
keep in constant motion under the influence of the water run- 
ning over them; but the object has never been fully attained. 
Quicksilver is used in nearly all quartz-mill sluices. 

The rawhide used in separating gold from the pulverized 



MINING. 283 

quartz is a common cowhide, laid down in a trough with the 
Jiairy side up, and the grain of the hair against the course of 
the water. The gold is then caught in the hair. Sheep-hides 
have been used in the same manner, recalhng to mind the 
Golden Fleece. The hides, however, are inferior to the 
blankets for this purpose, and are never used in the best mills. 

The methods of amalgamating are numerous. Among them 
are amalgamation in the battery, amalgamation witli the cop- 
per plate, amalgamating bowls, and patent amalgamation of 
many kinds. 

Tn many mills quicksilver is placed in the battery, two 
ounces of quicksilver for one of gold ; and about two-thirds of 
the gold is caught thus. The copper plate in quartz-mills is 
made in the same manner as in placer-sluices, under which 
head a description of the plate may be found. Some amalga- 
mating boAvls or basins are little Chilean mills and arastras, 
made of cast-iron. One plan of amalgamation is to use a cast- 
iron bowl about four feet in diameter and a foot deep. Near 
the bottom are horizontal iron arms, which revolve and stir 
the quicksilver and pulverized quartz together. Four or five 
of these bowls sit in a row but at different levels : the bottom 
of the first bowl being level with the top of the second, and so 
on. The pulverized quartz passes through them all. Under 
each bowl a fire is kept up, because heat forms the action of 
amalgamation. If there be any pyrites in the quartz, some 
common salt is thrown in to assist in releasing the gold from 
the embraces of the sulphurets, and preparing it to be seized 
by the mercury. Another amalgamating bowl revolves on an 
axis that stands at an angle of about seventy-five degrees to 
the horizon, so that the material in the bowl is continually 
moving ; and the bottom is divided by little compartments, 
which make a constant riffle. In other bowls the })ulverized 
quartz is forced with water through the mercury. The methods 
of amalgamation diifer very much, and a book might be filled 
with a description and discussion of the processes used at 
different quartz-mills in California. 



284 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 212. Siulphurets. — Many auriferous quartz veins contain 
considerable quantities of sulpliurets or pyrites of iron, cop- 
per and lead, and their presence prevents amalgamation, and 
thus causes a great loss of gold. It is said that on some occa- 
sions in good mills, not more than twenty or thirty dollars 
have been obtained from a ton of vein-stone which had seven 
or eight hundred dollars of gold in every ton. The best 
method of treating the quartz containing pyrites, is to roast it, 
and thus drive off the sulphur, but this process is so expensive 
that it is seldom used ; and the common practice is to crush 
and amalgamate the rock, and save the concentrated tailings for 
some future time, when there may be a sale for them, or Avhen 
it will be cheaper to reduce them. The pulverized sulphurets 
are decomposed by exposure to the air, and after the tailings 
have been preserved for a time, they may pay better at the 
second amalgamation than at the first. A mixture of common 
salt assists the decomposition of the pyrites. 

§ 213. Chief Quartz-Mills. — The most productive quartz- 
mill in the state is the Benton mill, on Fremont's Ranch, in 
Mariposa county. It is also the largest, having forty-eight 
stamps. There are four mills on the estate, with ninety-one 
stamps in all, and their average yield per month is sixty thou- 
sand dollars. A railroad four miles long conveys the quartz 
from the lode to the mills. The Allison quartz mine in Nevada 
county produces forty thousand dollars per month. The Sierra 
Buttes quartz-mill, twelve miles from Downieville, yields about 
fifteen thousand dollars per month. These last mills run 
night and day, and crush and amalgamate ten thousand tons 
of rock a year or twenty-eight tons per day. Forty men are 
employed, twenty-five to quarry the rock, five in the mill to 
attend to the stamps and amalgamation, one to do carpentry, 
one for blacksmithing, and eight for getting out timber, trans- 
porting quartz, and so forth. The cost gf quarrying, crush- 
ing, and amalgamating a ton of rock is six dollars. The wages 
of the men are from fifty to seventy dollars per month with 
boarding. The average wages is sixty dollars About ten 



MINING. 285 

miles eastward of Sonora, in Tuolumne county, are some rich 
veins of auriferous quartz, the most prominent of which are 
the Soulsby and Blukeslee lodes. The Soulsby mill produced 
forty thousand dollars in three weeks, when it commenced 
work in 1858, but it has not been so profitable of late. 

§ 214. /Silver Alining. — Silver mining has not yet been 
established fairly as a business in California. The silver ores 
of Washoe were discovered in 1859, and mining has been 
fairly commenced there, but the mines of Esmeralda and Coso, 
within the limits of this state, were not found until the sum- 
mer of 1860, and up the present time no mills have been, 
established there. 

Silver mining diflers much from gold mining. Gold is always 
found as a metal, never as an ore, and the separation from the 
accompanying vein-stone with which it is mixed mechanically, is 
much more simple and easy than the reduction of the argentif- 
erous ores in which the silver is chemically combined with 
base substances, for which it has a strong afiinity. Chemical 
knowledge and chemical processes are more necessary in min- 
ing for silver than for gold ; and while all auriferous quartz is of 
the same kind, and may be treated in the same manner, there 
are many different kinds of silver ores, each of which requires 
a peculiar treatment. The reduction of silver ore costs on an 
average, from three to five times as much as the reduction of 
auriferous quartz. 

The silver ore of Esmeralda and Coso is a sulphuret of 
silver, nearly all the veins having the same material, though the 
amount of it scattered through the vein-stone difters greatly 
in difierent lodes. In some veins there is much free gold, that 
is, little specks of metallic gold which can be separated from 
tlie other material in the same manner that gold is separated 
from auriferous quartz. The methods of reducing silver ore 
are so numerous ^d complex, and vary so much in difil-rent 
districts and under difierent circumstances, that it is impossi- 
ble to know now what process will be used in Esmeralda and 
Coso, the resources of which places have been so little studied. 



286 KESOUKOES OP C ALIFORlSri A. 

Besides it is said that new processes for reducing silver ore 
have been invented, far superior to all the old methods ; and 
these processes are kept secret. It is therefore unnecessary 
that I should go into a long description of the various pro- 
cesses practised elsewhere. Silver ore after pulverization is 
smelted by mixing with it fifty per cent, of lead in metal or 
ore, and ten per cent, of iron, and exposing the whole to a 
heat suiRcient to melt the silver which runs off. The metal 
thus obtained is not pure but contains much lead, which is 
driven off by heat while the silver is kept in a molten condition 
for a period of four or six hours. The cost of smelting in 
California at present, is about one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars per ton. In most of the other methods of reducing 
silver ore, the ore is roasted to drive off the sulphur. In the 
barrel amalgamation, which has been used at Washoe, and will 
probably be used at Esmeralda also, half a ton of ore, after 
being pulverized and roasted, three hundred pounds of water, 
and one hundred pounds of wrought iron, in little fragments, 
are put into a barrel, which revolves on a perpendicular axis. 
At th(i end of two hours the mass has taken the consistence of 
thick cream, when five hundred pounds of quicksilver are put 
in, and after the barrel has revolved four hours more, the 
amalgamation is complete. More water is now poured in; 
the barrel revolves very slowly to let the amalgam all settle to 
the bottom, the mud runs off through a cock four inches above 
the bottom and the mercury and amalgam are then drawn off 
through a little hole in the bottom of the barrel. 

§ 215. Quicksilver Minmg. — The ore from which quick- 
silver is obtained is a sulphuret. The sulphur is driven off by 
heat, and the metal, which rises in fumes from the ore, is col- 
lected by condensation. The miners are Cornishmen and 
Mexicans. The ore is in large masses underground, not in a 
connected vein of regular thickness ; and a|^r one mass is ex- 
hausted, much labor is often vainly spent in search of another. 
There are, however, usually little seams of ore running from 
one large deposit to another, and it is the business of the 



MINING. 28Y 

milling captains to observe tliese veins closely, and trace them 
np when a "fault" occurs. Tliere are no scientilic rules for 
finding the ore ; and the business of searching for the large 
deposits is never intrusted to educated mining engineers, but 
always to mining captains, who have themselves been laborers, 
and have learned, by experience where to seek. The New 
Almaden mine produces two hundred and twenty thousand 
pounds of metal in a month. The hacienda^ or reducing estab- 
lishment of the mining company, has fourteen brick furnaces, 
each fifty feet long, twelve feetiiigh, and twelve feet wide. At 
one end of each furnace is the fire chamber, which may be nine 
cubic feet inside ; next that is the ore chamber of about the 
same size ; and beyond that is the condensing chamber in 
which there are a number of partitions alternately running up 
fi-om the bottom and down from the top, with a space for the 
fumes to pass, their course being up and down, and up and 
down again, and so on, for a distance of thirty feet to the 
chimney, which is forty feet high. In the bottom of the con- 
densing chamber is water. The walls between the fire cham- 
ber and the ore chamber, and between the latter and the con- 
densing chamber, are built with open spaces, so that the heat, 
smoke, and fumes can pass through. The ore is placed in the 
ore chamber in such a manner as to leave many open spaces. 
Tiie heat drives off the sulphur and mercury of the ore in 
fumes, which in passing through the condensing chambers, de- 
posit the mercury, and the smoke and sulphur escape through 
the chimney. In the Enriqueta and Guadalupe mines the 
quicksilver is condensed in a close iron retort, and the sulphur 
is absorbed by quicklime. 

Copper ore is dug from several mines in California, but it is 
all exported to be smelted elsewhere. 

§ 216. Platinum. — Platinum, iridium, and osmium, three 
white metals of ab(^t the same specific gravity with gold, are 
found with the latter metal in the placers in the basin of 
the Klamath and Trinity Rivers. Their particles are usually 
fine scales, very rarely reaching a quarter of an ounce in weight, 



288 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

and the largest piece of either ever found was less than an 
ounce and a half. They cannot be separated from the gold by 
washing, but they do not unite with qnieksiiver, and therefore 
they are separated from the more precious metal by amalga- 
mation. They have no regular market in the state ; miners 
never make them the chief object of search, and tliey have 
not been studied, so it is not known to what extent they might 
be obtained. 

§ 217. Del ^orte and Klamath. — Del Xorte county in the 
northwestern corner of the state, is about forty miles long 
from east to west by thirty from north to south. Tlie mining 
population in it is small. Most of tlie mining is done along the 
banks of the Klamath Hiver, which runs about twenty miles 
thi'ough the southeastern portion of the county. There are 
some miners on the head-waters of Althouse Creek, which runs 
northward into Oregon. The county assessor, in his report for 
1860, does not mention the existence of any quartz-mill or 
mining-ditch in the county. The mining districts are very 
mountahious and difficult of access. They obtain most of their 
supplies from Crescent City. The mining is chiefly in shallow 
placers, in deep and narrow ravines, and on bars of the Kla- 
math River. 

Klamath county lies immediately south of Del Norte, and is 
about the same size. It is almost exclusively a mining county, 
and has a population of about eighteen hundred. The diggings 
are placers in the bars and banks of the Klamath River and 
its tributaries, the Trinity and Salmon Rivers, and many small 
creeks. The principal mining places are Orleans Bar, Gullion's 
Bar, Negro Flat, Cecilville, AYeitspeck, and Red Cap. The 
whole county is very rugged and mountainous, and much of it, 
is covered with heavy timber. The diggings are so difficult 
of access, and are so protected by mountains against ditches, 
that they will last for many years. Therms probably no part 
of the state where the single miner, without capital, has a 
better chance to dig gold with a profit. Nearly the wholt? 
beach of the county is auriferous. 



MINING. 289 

§ 218. SisJciyoii. — Siskiyou county lies east of Del Norte 
and Klamath, is forty miles wide from north to south, one 
hundred miles long from east to west, and reaches to the 
eastern boundary of the state. It has a population of 7,629, 
the large majority of whom are engaged in mining. The 
mining district is all in the western end of the county, along 
the banks of the Klamath River and its tributaries the Scott 
and Shasta Rivers. The Klamath runs through a deep canon ; 
the Scott and Shasta Rivers have pleasant open valleys, but the 
diggings along their banks are chiefly among the canons near 
the Klamath. Hydraulic and tunnel claims are rare. There 
are six quartz-mills in the county and fifteen mining-ditches, 
of which last the principal is the Yreka canal, forty miles long, 
brino^inGT water from the head of Shasta River to the town of 
Yreka. In 1859 there were four quartz-mills in the county, 
one of which was at Mugginsville, one in Scott's valley and 
two in Quartz valley. I have no information about the situa- 
tion of the two built since that time. The principal mining 
towns are Yreka, Scott's Bar, Hawkinsville, Johnson's Bar, 
Deadwood, and Cottonwood. 

§ 219. Trinity and Shasta. — South of the western part of 
Siskiyou and the eastern part of Klamath, lies Trinity county, 
ninety miles long from north to south, and about twenty miles 
wide on an average. The northern part of the county is the 
basin of the Trinity River, and is auriferous. From the county 
Assessor's report for 18G0, it is to be inferred that there is not 
a quartz-mill or a mining-ditch in the state. The county is 
very mountainous, and most of the mining is done in rugged 
canons along the Trmity River. The chief mining towns are 
Weaverville, Cox's Bar, Big Bar, Arkansas Flat, Mooney's 
Flat, and Trinity Centre. 

South of Siskiyou and east of Trinity lies Shasta county, 
which is on an average forty miles wide from north to south, 
and one hundred mJ^3S long, reaching to the eastern border of 
the state. There is a rich auriferous district about twenty 
miles square, in the vicinity of the town of Shasta, in the 



290 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

southwestern part of the county. The diggings are mostly in 
the basins of Clear Creek, Cottonwood Creek, Rock Creek, 
and Salt Creek, all of which enter into the Sacramento. There 
are four quartz-mills in the county, one at French Gulch, one 
at Middle Creek, one at Muletown, and one at Old Diggings. 
The county has twenty-seven mining ditches, with a joint length 
of one hundred and forty-one miles, an average of five miles 
each. The chief mining towns are Shasta, Horsetown, French 
Gulch, Muletown, Briggsville, Whiskey, and Middletown. 

§ 220. Plumas and Sierra. — South of the eastern part of 
Shasta county lies Plumas, wdiich is about seventy miles square. 
About one-third of the county, in the southwestern part of it, 
comprising that portion drained by the head- waters of Feather 
River, is auriferous. It lies high above the level of the sea, 
and the ^vork of mining is interrupted during a considerable 
portion of the winter, by cold, snow, and ice. Hydraulic and 
tunnel claims in deep hills, furnish a large portion of the gold 
yield of the county. There are five quartz-mills, one at Eliza- 
bethtown, one at Eureka Lake, and three at Jamison Creek. 
The principal mining towns are Quincy, Jamison City, Indian 
Bar, Nelson's Point, and Poorman's Creek. 

South of Plumas is Sierra county, which is fifty miles long 
from east to west and twenty miles wide from north to south. 
The North Fork of the Yuba River runs through its cen- 
tre, and the Middle Fork is its southern boundary. Though 
small, it is one of the richest mining counties of the state, and 
in proportion to the extent of its mining ground, is much 
richer than any other county. All its territory is four thou- 
sand feet above the sea-level, at the lowest. Most of the min- 
ing is done in hydraulic and tunnel claims in deep hills. Near 
the centre of the county is a mountain called the Downieville 
Butte, or the Yuba Butte, eight thousand eight hundred and 
forty-six feet high, on the sides of which are found some rich 
quartz leads. In 1859 there were eleven quartz-mills in Sierra 
county, of which seven are at the Butte, two at Downievijle, 
one at the Mountain House, and one at Sierra City. The 



MINING. 291 

principal mining towns are Downicvillc, Monte Cristo, Pine 
Grove, St. Louis, La Porte, Poker Flat, Eureka City, Forest 
City, Allegliany Town, and Cox's Bar. One of the most re- 
markable features of tlie placers of the state is the blue lead, 
which was first discovered in Sierra county, and has been more 
thoroughly examined there than elsewhere. The "blue lead" 
is a stratum of blue clay very rich in gold. It is found deep 
under other strata. The general opinion is, that the blue lead 
occupies the bed of a large antediluvian river, which ran parallel 
with the Sacramento and about sixty miles eastward of it. It 
has been traced twenty miles or more, passing near Monte 
Cristo, Alleghany Town, Forest City, Chip's Flat, and Zion Hill. 
Mr. C. S. Capp wrote thus to the San Francisco Bulletin : 

" This is not one of the many petty leads, an inch or two in 
breadth and thickness, which, after being traced a few hundred 
feet, end as suddenly and mysteriously as they commence ; but 
it is, evidently, the bed of some ancient river. It is often hun- 
dreds of feet in width, and extends for miles and miles, a thou- 
sand feet below the summits of high mountains, and entirely 
through them. Now it crops out where the deep channels of 
some of the rivers and ravines of the present day have cut it 
asunder ; and then, hidden beneath the rocks and strata above 
it, it only emerges again miles and miles away. Wherever its 
continuity has been destroyed, the river or gulch which has 
washed a portion of it away, was found to be immensely rich 
for some distance below, and the materials of which the lead, is 
composed are found with the gold in the bed of the stream. 
It is evidently the bed of some ancient stream, because it is 
walled in by steep banks of hard bed-rock, precisely like the 
banks of rivers and ravines in which water noAv runs, and be- 
cause it is composed of clay which is evidently a sedimentary 
deposit, and of pebbles of black and white quartz, which 
could only be rounded and polished as they are by the long- 
continued action of swiftly running water. The bed-rock in 
the bottom of this lead is worn into long smooth channels, and 
also has its rouohnesses and crevices like other river-beds. 



292 KESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

The lighter and poorer qualities of gold are found nearest to 
its edges, while the heavier and finer portions have found their 
way to the deeper places, near the centre. Trees and pieces 
of wood, more or less petrified and changed in their nature, 
which once floated in its waters, are also everywhere encoun- 
tered throughout this stratum. 

" The clay and fine gravel in which these pebbles and boul- 
ders are found to be tightly packed, is of a light-blue color, 
which gives the name to the lead. Much of this clay is re- 
markably fine and free from coarse particles, and is smooth and 
unctuous to the touch. It is said to be strongly impregnated 
with arsenic, as was shown by chemical analysis, and contains 
large quantities of iron and sulphur in solution, for pyrites and 
sulphurets of iron are deposited in shining metallic crystals in 
every vacant crevice. Fine gold is found among this clay, and 
the heavier particles beneath it, upon the bed-rock. This stra- 
tum varies in thickness from eio'hteen inches to eio-ht or ten 
feet, while the whole lead varies in width from a hundred and 
fifty to five hundred feet. 

" The same lead has been found at Sebastopol, four miles 
above Monte Cristo, and also higher up among the mountains. 
It appears at Monte Cristo, which is four miles above the high- 
lying Downieville, and over three thousand feet above it, and 
at Chapparal Hill on the side of a deep ravine ; then at the 
City of Six, which is also on very high land, about four miles 
from Downieville, across the North Yuba. It is next found 
at Forest City, on both sides of a creek, and is there traced 
directly through the mountain to Alleghany Town and Smith's 
Flat, on the opposite side. There it is again cut in twain by 
a deep ravine. It crops out on the other side at Chip's Flat, 
where it has been followed by tunnels passing completely 
through the mountain to Centreville and Minnesota on the 
other side. Here it is obliterated by the Middle Fork of the 
Yuba, but it is believed to be again found at Snow Point, on 
the opposite side of the river ; and again at Zion Hill, several 
miles beyond. There is no reason for doubting that after thus 



MINING. 293 

reaching over twenty miles, it still extends farther. Hundreds 
of tunnels have been run in search of it. Where the line it 
follows was adhered to, they have always found it, and have 
been well rewarded for their labor. Millions of dollars have 
been taken from this lead, and its richness, even in portions 
longest worked, is yet undiminished. These tunnels have cost 
from $20,000 to $100,000 each, and interests in the claims 
they enter sell readily at from $1,000 to $20,000, in proportion 
to the amount of ground within them remaining untouched, 
and the facilities which exist for working it. Many of these 
claims will yet afford from five to ten or more years' profitable 
labor to their owners, before the lead itself Avithin them is 
exhausted. As in some of them quartz veins and poorer pay- 
ing gravel have been found, many of them may be valuable to 
work from the top down as hydraulic claims." 

This idea that the blue lead occupies the bed of an an- 
tediluvian river is however not universally accepted. Mr. 
B. P. Avery, who has written numerous newspjiper articles 
upon the mineral deposits, asserts that the "blue lead," as 
it is called, is not a " lead" but an extensive stratum which 
is many miles wide, and is found all the way from the foot hills 
to the summit of the Sierra Xevada. In reply to this, it is 
said that while a bluish stratum of clay similar to that of the 
blue lead is found over a wide district, that it is evidently 
different in origin from the blue lead itself, which is confined 
to a narrow bed, and marked by the signs found in all the other 
ancient river-beds of the state. 

The Sierra Butte Quartz Mining Comj)any has some of the 
best auriferous quartz lodes in the state. One lode called the 
Cliff Ledge, is twenty-five feet wide; and another called the 
Aerial Ledge, is about three feet wide. In the Cliff Ledge, the 
paying rock averages about six feet in thickness next the foot- 
wall. The average yield is eighteen dollars per ton. The 
quartz is bluish-white in color, and very hard when first taken 
from the lode, but on exposure to the air it slowly crumbles 
into sand. 



294 EESOUECES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

§ 221. Yuba and Butte. — AYest of Sierra county, and drained 
by the same streams, is Yuba, which reaches to the Sacramento 
River, lying lialf in the mountains and half in the plain, the 
mining district being in the former half. The principal min- 
ing towns are Camptonville, Timbuctoo, Foster's Bar, Texas 
Bar, and Long's Bar. In 1859 there were nine quartz-mills in 
the county, three at Brown's valley, and one each at Camp- 
tonville, Dobbin's Ranch, Dry Creek, Honcut, Indiana Creek, 
and Bobbin's Creek. The assessor in 1860 reported only two 
quartz-mills in the county. There are twenty-two ditches 
in the county, with an aggregate length of nine hundred and 
fifty-two miles, an average of forty-three miles each. The most 
important ditch, called " Bovyer's," supplies Timbuctoo with 
five thousand inches of water in the winter, less in the summer. 
The diggings at Timbuctoo are in a deep hill, which is washed 
away by the hydrauhc process. 

"West of Yuba and Plumas counties lies Butte, which is 
drained by the Feather River. The principal nnning towns 
are Oroville, BidwelFs Bar, Forbestown, Katchez, and White- 
rock. In 1859 there were seventeen quartz-mills in the county, 
of which four were at Oregon Gulch, at Columbiaville and 
Ilansonville three each, two at Yankee Hill, and at Evansville, 
Gold Run, Long Bar, Xesbitt's Flat, and Spring valley, one 
each. The assessor reports for 1860, twenty-nine quartz- 
mills, worth fifty thousand dollars, and crushing in the aggre- 
frate one hundred and sixtv-two and a half tons per day. 
There are sixty-four mining-ditches, with an aggregate length 
of five hundred and eighty-three miles. The bars and beds of 
Feather River were once very rich, and some of the most ex- 
tensive enterprises of river mining in the state have been 
undertaken within the hmits of Butte county. The greatest 
flume ever built in California was that of the Cape Clnim 
Company, near Oroville, in 1857. It was three-quarters of a 
mile long and twenty feet wide, and furnished employment for 
two hundred and fifty men from May till November. The 
expenditures during that period were $176,985, and the re- 



Mixixo. 295 

ceipts ^251,426, showing a clear profit of $74,441. The next 
year, after the Avater had fallen, the company commenced its 
labors again ; S])ent $160,000 and received 8115,000, and thus 
lost $45,000. North of Oroville is a "table-mountain" with 
a top of basalt, covering a rich deposit of auriferous clay. 

§ 222. Ntvacla and Placer. — South of Yuba and Butte is 
Nevada, the richest mining county of the state. Within its 
limits the torn, sluice, under-current sluice, and crinoline hose 
were invented, and the ditch and hydraulic power were first 
applied to placer-mining ; and quartz-mining was first under- 
taken extensively. In 1859 there were thirty-two quartz-mills 
in the county, and twenty-eight mining-ditches, with an aggre- 
gate length of three hundred and ninety-four miles. No part 
of the mineral region of the state is better supplied with water 
than Nevada county. The richest quartz district is in the 
vicinity of Nevada City, which has fifteen mills, and Grass 
Valley, five miles distant, has seventeen. The great Allison 
mine, which has the richest lode in the state, is in Grass 
Valley. 

The quartz mines here are much troubled with water, 
and during the winter of 1860-'61 many of the mills were 
compelled to stop for weeks until the shafts could be drained 
by steam-engines, after having been filled by a long and heavy 
rain. The annual gold yield of Grass Valley has been estimated 
at four millions of dollars. North San Juan has the finest hy- 
draulic claims, and Sweetland the largest tail-sluices. The 
Eureka Lake Ditch Com})any has more ditching and water 
than any other company in the state. Their main ditch is 
seventy-five miles long, and there are one hundred and ninety 
miles of branches, making a total of two hundred and sixty- 
five miles, which have cost nine hundi'ed thousand dollars. 
The daily sale of water is six thousand inches, with a weekly 
income of six thousand dollars. The principal mining towns 
arc Nevada, Grass Valley, North San Juan, Rough and Ready, 
Orleans Fiat, Moore's Flat, and Humbug City. 

Placer county lies next to Nevada <:coin2: southward. Tbo 



296 RESOURCES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

Korth Fork of the American River runs through the micldle of 
the county, and tlie Middle Fork forms its southern boundary. 
The principal mining towns are Auburn, Yankee Jim's, Gold 
Hill, Dutch Flat, Todd's valley, Michigan City, Iowa Hill, 
Bath and Wisconsin Hill. Two-thirds of the present gold yield 
of the county is derived from hydraulic claims. 

Some of the placer diggings near Bath are found in a peculiar 
formation. The principal deposit is in a deep hill, at the bot- 
tom of which is a stratum of pay-dirt, consisting of a fine sandy 
sediment, with pebbles and pieces of quartz. The gold is 
round and coarse. Above that is a stratum of blue gravel, 
which varies from twenty to one hundred and fifty feet in 
thickness. This blue gravel is " spoted ;" that is, in places it 
pays well ; in other places it does not pay at all. Above this 
stratum is another layer of pay-dirt composed of a reddish 
gravel, which is about three feet thick on an average, and con- 
tains little scales of gold. The top of the ridge is composed 
of a whitish cement or tough clay, which, where exposed to 
the air, is reddish in color, and resembles the red gravelly clay 
found in most of the hills in the rich mininor districts. 

§ 223. El Dorado and Amador. — El Dorado county ad- 
joins Placer on the south, and is drained by the South Fork 
of the American River, which runs through its centre, the 
Middle Fork, which is its northern boundary, and the Cosum- 
nes its southern boundary. It is the oldest placer-mining 
county of the Sacramento basin, Marshall having made his 
discovery within its limits ; and ten years ago it was called 
the " Empire County," because it cast the largest vote in the 
state, but it has now lost much of its population and fallen be- 
hind several others. The principal mining towns are Placer- 
ville, Coloma, Georgetown, Diamond Springs, El Dorado, 
Spanish Bar, and Indian Diggings. In 1859 there were forty 
quartz-mills in the county, of which six are at El Dorado, 
three at Steeley's Fork, at Placerville, Nashville, Grizzly 
Flat, Loafer Hollow, and Logtown two each, and the othera 
«\re scattered about. The county has fifty-one ditches, twelve 



MINING. 297 

hundred and fifty miles in aggregate length, the average 
length being twenty-four miles, 

"Indian Diggings," says Mr. Capp, "is a mining village 
twenty-five miles southeastward from Placerville, on the bank 
of Indian Creek. In this district, a belt of limestone, or blue 
and white marble, rises in ridges through the slate bed-rock, 
and is in places cut by the w^ater into long and deep channels, 
some of which serve as natural tail-races for the miners, but it 
oftener renders large amounts of blasting necessary. The 
claims in the bed of the creek formerly paid well, as the tail- 
ings washed down from the hydraulic claims above continually 
enriched them. In some of the creek claims, in the middle of 
the channel, deep holes were found, filled with a kind of dirt 
difierent from that above it. This was sometimes extremely 
rich, and in one claim a single panful paid three dollars. An- 
other singular feature connected with these deep places, is that 
they seem to have subterranean outlets, for in one instance a 
hundred inches of water poured in for three days, with all the 
dirt it washed down, failed to have any perceptible effect in 
filling it up. It was finally stopped with bushes and gravel, 
and the water turned off. A mile or more above this, in an- 
other claim, a similar hole was discovered, and forty inches of 
water poured in for several hours produced no visible progress 
toward filling it. Here the miner was in doubt whether there 
was a rich deposit of gold awaiting him down there, or whether 
the bottom of his claim had fallen out altogether." 

Amador county adjoins El Dorado, with the Cosumnes for 

its northern boundary and the Mokelumne for the southern. 

The principal mining towns are Jackson, Volcano, Butte City, 

Dryton, Fiddletown, Sutter Creek, and Lancha Plana. Much 

of the b«d-rock is marble. The county is rich in auriferous 

quartz, and has thirty-two mills, of which six are at Sutter 

Creek, five at Amador City, four at Dry Creek, at Volcano, 

Clinton, Contreras, and North Fork of the Mokelumne, two 

each, and at Big Bar Bridge, Butte City, Drytown, Grass 

Valley, Gales' Ranch, Herbertsville, Oneida, and Raucheria 
14 



298 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

Creek one each. The county has eight mining-ditches, with an 
aggregate length of one hundred and sixty-seven miles. 

§ 224. Calaveras and Tuolumne. — Next to Amador is Cala- 
veras county, bounded on the north by the Mokehimne River, 
on the south by the Stanislaus River, with the Calaveras River 
running between them. The principal mining towns are Moke- 
lumne Hill, San Andi-es, Murphy's, Angel's, Vallecito, "West 
Point, Campo Secho, Douglass' Flat, Carson, Jesus Maria, and 
Esperanza. The county has thirty-three quartz-mills, of which 
twelve are at Angel's, at Carson and the South Fork of the Mok- 
elumne River four each, three at the North Fork of the Mok- 
ehimne, at West Point, Rich Gulch, Murray's Creek and the 
Middle Fork of the Mokelumne, two each, and at Bear Creek 
and McKinney's Humbug one each. Mr. Capp says, " The inain 
wealth of the district about West Point consists in its quartz 
leads, vv'hich are so numerous that several of the residents in- 
formed me, that starting three miles north of West Point, and 
proceeding south for a distance of nine miles to the junction 
of the forks of the Mokelumne, a person would cross a quartz 
vein in every hundred yards. About one hundred of these veins 
have been prospected upon the surface, and scarcely any have 
been found that did not prove to contain gold. As a proof of 
the richness of the veins of this district, it would be sufficient to 
state that large numbers of Mexicans and other Spaniards are 
now working them successfully, although they pay from one 
dollar to one dollar and fifty cents per cargo of three hundred 
pounds, to have the rock ground in arastras, to which freight 
from the leads to the mills along the river has also to be added. 
Mexicans who do their own work, cannot possibly afford to 
work rock that does not at least pay three dollars per cargo, 
or twenty dollars per ton, and in fact they seldom do work 
rock that pays less than six dollars per cargo and forty dollars 
per ton. 

" There is very little slate in this district, and nearly all the 
quartz veins are encased in granite, which is usually much de- 
com2)osed. Occasionally, the granite appears to * pinch' the 



MINING. 299 

quartz leads mrtil they become very thin, but by tracing them 
on further, or downwards, tliey again swell out to their origi- 
nal size, and sometimes bulge out beyond it. In such places, 
and at the intersection of small veins, very rich deposits of 
gold are frequently found, which, from their narrowness and 
the depth to which they extend, the Spaniards call clavos or 
nails. The principal portion of the rock about Angel's is of a 
greenish and gray color, and contains large quantities of the 
6ul[)liuret of iron. Mixed with this are streaks and veins of 
white quartz or limestone. The sulphurets are found, either in 
irregular bright crystalline masses, or small threads and veins. 
Some of these veins are as much as eight inches in thickness. 
In other portions of the green rock, the sulphurets are scat- 
tered all through it, as separate and minute square crystals. 
The whole formation will probably become one solid vein when 
any considerable depth is reached ; but near the surface it is 
cut" up into separate veins by streaks and wedges of slate, 
which do not appear to contain any gold. These streaks of 
slate are from a few inches to several feet in thickness. The 
poorer portions of the rock contain from twelve to sixteen per 
cent, of the sulphurets, while the richest are nearly pure 
crystals, among which the gold is seen shining in small par- 
ticles and swales." 

In the southeastern corner of Calaveras county, thirty-five 
miles from Stockton, are mines of carbonate and sulphuret of 
copper. During the first three months of 1861, four hundred 
tons of ore, containing about thirty-three per cent, of me'tal, 
were taken out, and one-half the amount was shii)ped to the 
Eastern states. The cost of getting the ore out and hauling 
it to Stockton has been eight dollars per ton. 

Tuolumne adjoins Calaveras county, and is bounded by the 
Stanislaus River on the north, and the divide between the 
Tuolumne and Merced liivers on the south, the former stream 
being within the limits of the county. The principal mining 
towns are Sonora, Columbia, Springfield, Shaw's Flat, James- 
town, Chinese Camp, Big Oak Flat, Garrote, Don Pedro's 



300 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

Bar, and Pine Log. The first four are within a circle with a 
radius of five miles, a district which has been extremely rich 
in placer diggings, and especially in large nuggets. In 1850 
two lumps of twenty-three pounds, one each of eighteen, thir- 
teen, ten, five, four, and three pounds, were found; in 1851 
one each of twenty-eight, twenty-foar, twenty-three, and five 
pounds; in 1852 one each of nine and five pounds ; in 1853 
one each of twenty, ten, nine, eight, seven, and six pounds ; in 
1854 one each of seventy-two, twenty-seven, sixteen, and seven- 
teen pounds; in 1855 one of thirty pounds ; and in 1858 one 
of thirty-three pounds. Two of the largest mining ditches in 
the state supply water to the miners in the vicinity of Sonora 
and Columbia. The number of mining ditches in the county 
is twenty-one, and their aggregate length two hundred and 
seventy miles. There are thirty quartz-mills, of which four are 
at Quartz Hill, four at Tuttletown, three on the banks of the 
Tuolumne River, and as many on Turnback Creek, at Colum- 
bia, SouLby's Ranch, and Wood's Creek two each, and at Bald 
mountain. Big Oak Flat, Italian Camp, Jackson Flat, Moc- 
casin Creek, Rawhide Ranch, Sonora, Whiskey Hill, Wood's 
Crossing, and Yankee Hill, one each. The table-mountain in 
Tuolumne county is the most remarkable elevation of its kind 
in the state. It has an average height of five hun^-ed feet, an 
average width of four hundred yards, a length of thirty miles, 
and a surface almost perfectly flat, slightly descending toward 
the west. It was evidently formed by an immense stream of 
lava, which was once confined between banks higher than its 
own surface, w^iich banks have since been washed away, leav- 
ing the stream of lava standing like a mountain above the level 
of the adjacent country. The sides near the top are perpen- 
dicular and of solid basalt ; farther down they are slojung, and 
composed of dirt and fragments of basalt that have fallen Ironi 
above. Under the basalt lie the gravel and sand of the ancient 
river-bed, enclosed at the sides by ridges of rock, which rise 
above the level of the adjacent plain. When therefore the min- 
ers first wished to reach the auriferous deposits under the moun- 



MINING. 301 

tain, it was necessary for them to cut tunnels through a rim of 
rock ; but now that many of the tunnels have drained away all 
the water, they are started up on the hill-side above the rock, and 
cut in sloping downward, so that the hard bed-rock is avoided, 
and in many places the tunnels made on this plan may run all 
the way through soft dirt. It is established beyond all reason- 
able doubt, that the auriferous deposit under the basalt was 
once the bed of an ancient river. Every mark indicates it. 
The wide water-worn bed, the bends, the bars, the deposits of 
gravel in eddies, the collection of coarse gold in the centre, 
the position of the large flat stones, all pointing down stream, 
the remains of fresh-water mollusks, and the beds of little 
tributary streams — all these are conclusive proof that a large 
river once ran Avhere this mountain now stands. The pay-dirt 
is a tough clay filled with large stones, and is from a foot to 
six feet deep. In one place a claim one hundred superficial 
feet square yielded seventy-five thousand dollars. The dis- 
tance from the outside of the mountain to the pay-dirt, varies 
from six to twelve hundred feet. About ten miles east of 
Sonora is the Soulsby quartz lead, one of the richest in the 
state. 

§ 225. Mono mid Mariposa. — Eastward of Tuolumne, east 
of the summit of the Sierra Nevada, and within the limits of 
the Great Basin, lies the county of Mono, which contains the 
gold placers of Mono Lake and Walker River, and the silver 
lodes of Esmeralda. The placers of Walker and Mono are 
neither extensive nor rich ; water is scarce ; and the winters 
are so cold that mining is necessarily interrupted. The Walker 
diggings are seventy-five miles southward from Carson City, 
and the Mono placers are twenty-five miles further in the same 
direction. The Esmeralda mhies are in a nest of mountains of 
the same name, most of the ridges of which run north and 
south, and are composed of eruptive rocks, such as trap and 
basalt, with occasional greenstone and porphyry. The argen- 
tiferous region lies in a rugged part of the mountains, about 
five thousand feet above the level of the sea. The ore is all a 



302 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

sulphuret of silver, in a gangue of gray qnartz, running through 
trap and porphyritic greenstone. The lode ca'led the Esmer- 
alda, the most prora_nent and apparently the mother lode of 
the district, runs with the meridian, and contains very little 
or no gold, while other leads, running at right-angles to it, con- 
tain much free gold ; that is, particles of metallic gold which 
have formed no chemical union wdth the silver ore. The Esmer- 
alda mines were discovered in August, 1860, by J. M. Cory; 
not much of the ore has been taken out, no mills have been 
erected, little of the ore has been reduced, and therefore not 
much is known of the real w^ealth of the district, although little 
doubt is entertained that it will in time produce much silver. 
There are several small ditches at the Mono placers, but the 
county has no quartz-mills, and thus far no auriferous quartz 
has been discovered. 

South of Tuolumne lies Mariposa county, w^hich is drained 
by the Mariposa and Merced Rivers. The mines are shallow 
placers and quartz. There is, I believe, not a hydraulic or 
tunnel claim in the county, and the mining-ditches are few. 
The towns are small ; the population in the placers unsteady 
and irregular in their mode of life ; and the county, taken as a 
whole, is considered one of the most unpleasant parts of the 
state forjthe home of a family. In consequence of the scarcity 
of ditches there is no water in summer, and the placer miners 
therefore lie idle during a great part of the year, and either go 
to other counties or spend their time in dissipation. The 
county assessor reports five mining-ditches with a total length 
of forty-two miles. The quartz lodes are numerous and rich. 
There are thirty-four quartz-mills, of which four are on Fre- 
mont's ranch ; four at Coulterville ; at Gentry's Gulch and 
Whitlock Creek three each; at AguaFria, Bean's Creek, Bear 
valley, Burns' Creek, Mariposa Town, Mariposa Creek and 
Stockton Creek two each; and at Bull Creek, Corbett's Creek, 
Guadalupe, Mount Ophir, North Fork, Quartzburg, and Sax- 
ton's Creek one each. The Fremont ranch, which contains 
forty-eight thousand acres, is the most valuable mineral estate 



MINING. 303 

in California, and includes Bear valley, one of the richest 
quartz districts in the world. There are two principal lodes, 
called the Pine-Tree and Josephine, which unite and form a 
vein thirty feet wide. The rock crushed at the mills of the 
estate averages fourteen dollars to the ton. 

§ 226. l^'resno^ etc. — Fresno county, south of Mariposa, has 
the Chowchilla River for its northern boundary, and the Fresno 
and head- waters of the San Joaquin within its limits. These 
streams are all auriferous, but the diggings are not rich, and 
the gold is not line in quiility. There are no mining towns of 
note in this county. 

Between the San Joaquin River and White River, a distance 
of one hundred miles, the Sierra Nevada is barren of gold. 
White River is in Buena Vista county, and is not rich, but has 
some small districts of placer mines and a little quartz. 

Kern River in the same county has a small extent of placer 
ground and a good deal of auriferous quartz, most of which is 
crushed and amalgamated with the arastra. 

In latitude 36° 20', east of the Sierra ISTevada and Owen's 
Mountains, lies the Coso argentiferous district, a region of 
which very little is known as yet. 

Gold i)lacers are found in the San Francisquito Pass, forty- 
five miles northward from Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel 
^jaiion, twenty miles northeastward from the Mission of San 
Gabriel in Bear valley, fifteen miles eastward of San Bernar- 
dino, on the banks of the Colorado, twenty miles north of Fort 
i'uma, and in the Sierra of Santa Lucia, near the Mission of 
San Antonio. It is said that veins of auriferous and aroen- 
tiferous quartz are also found in Bear valley, and in Ilolcomb 
valley in the slopes of Mount San Bernardino, and that there 
is rich auriferous quartz at Amargosa in the valley of the 
Mohave, north of the sink of that river. 

Note. — The statement of the number of quartz-mills and mining canals in 
the several counties, is taken from H. G. Langley's State Register. 



304 KESOUECES OF CALIFOEXIA. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 

§ 227. High Wages. — There are two great difficulties in the 
way of the productive industry of California, the high prices 
of labor and. the high rates of interest. These may be bless- 
ings to certain classes of individuals, and perhaps even to the 
population generally, but they render it impossible for Califor- 
nia to compete with foreign manufacturers in many branches 
of employment. The great distance of our state from Europe 
and Atlantic ports — San Francisco is about nineteen thousand 
miles from New York, by the route followed by the sailing 
vessels ordinarily — and the high freight on merchandise, is a 
great protection to our home industry, and the Federal tariff 
gives us a further jDrotection on many articles ; but neverthe- 
less, a large proportion of the manufactured goods consumed 
here are imported from abroad, and probably will be for many 
years to come. We have no secondary coal in the state, and 
cannot expect to smelt iron ore, or to make cutlery or fine 
articles of hardware. Some cotton is produced on the shores 
of China and is now shipped to England ; perhaps we may at 
some future day be able to import it raw and manufacture it 
here, but of this there is no certainty. We cannot hope to 
obtain much cotton from this side of the Pacific, for the west- 
ern slope of the North American continent is not suited to 
cotton growing. Now coal, iron, and cotton are the raw ma- 
terial for a large share of the most profitable manufactures of 
our age. We shall produce a large quantity of fine wool, and 
It will in time be spun and woven here with a profit. Lum- 
ber is so bulky tliat it cannot well be imported from abroad, 



OTHER BKAXCIIES OF INDUSTKT. 305 

and our forests are so extensive and convenient to tlie market, 
tliat we can make our lumber as cheap as that made elsewhere. 
We have extensive fisheries and they must be developed. We 
must build our own houses, and construct our own roads, rail- 
ways, mining-ditches, and flumes. We now import all our 
hardware, glassware, porcelain, stationery, silks, cottons, fine 
woollen goods, and nearly all our clotliing, boots, shoes, and 
fine furniture, and many of our agricultural implements, me- 
chanical tools, wagons, and carriages. 

There has been a gradual fall in the wages of labor since 
1849. For instance, in that year the wages of good carpen- 
ters were sixteen dollars per day; in 1851, ten dollars; in 
1853, seven dollars; in 1856, five dollars; and now four dol- 
lars; and there has been a similar decrease of wages in all 
those branches of labor much in demand. Tailors, shoemakers, 
and cabinet-makers have never received high wages, because 
little is done in their trades. Millers, calkers, and ship-wrights 
now get from four to six dollars per day ; bricklayers, stone 
masons and plasterers from four to five dollars ; boiler-makers, 
machinists, and pattern-makers four dollars ; carpenters, black- 
smiths, and carriage-makers from three to four dollars ; house- 
painters, papei^hangers, and stevedores three dollars; hod- 
men and washerwomen two dollars ; common laborers one dol- 
lar and seventy-five cents. Of such persons as are hired by 
the month and boarded, gardeners get thirty-five dollars ; farm- 
ers, teamsters, waiters, sailors, chambermaids, and seamstresses 
twenty-five dollars. Clerks in stores get from thirty to sixty 
dollars with boarding ; from fifty to one hundred dollars with- 
out boarding. The best miners, of the class called " drifters," 
who cut and blast tunnels and dig shafts, get four dollars per 
day ; common miners get fifty dollars a month and boarding. 
The wages of labor in California are now higher than in any 
other pait of the world. 

§ 228. Lumbering. — Lumbering, or the preparation of forest 
timber for industrial purposes, is an important branch of the 
industry, and the sale of hunber is an important branch of the 
14* 



306 KESOIIECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

trade of the state. Our houses are built of lumber, our streets 
are planked with luraber, our fields are feuced "with lumber, 
and our flumes and sluices are made of lumber. And some 
parts of the state are very rich in timber and can readily 
supply the whole demand. Lumber is of three kinds, sawn, 
hewn, and split ; the last two kinds being very small in im- 
portance as compared with the first. About one hundred and 
seventy millions of feet of lumber are sawn aimually in Cali- 
fornia, and at the a\'erage price of twenty dollars per one 
thousand feet at the mill, the total amount of the lumber trade 
may be estimated at three millions of dollars. The chief lum- 
bering districts are in the Sierra Nevada, and very near the 
coast. Mendocino is the largest lumbering county of the state, 
and according to the assessor's report for 1860, produced thirly- 
five millions of feet in that year. The mills are at Timber 
Cove and the mouths of the ISToyo, Albion, and Big Rivers ; 
and the timber is nearly all redwood. Humboldt occupies 
the next place, sawing thirty million feet per annum ; and 
Santa Cruz county next, with ten million feet annually. All 
the timber cut in Santa Cruz is redwood ; in Humboldt there 
are about equal amounts of redwood, spruce, and fir, and a 
little fragrant cedar. Santa Cruz ships much lumber to the 
southern part of the state, and Mendocino and Humboldt 
supply most of the redwood lumber for the San Francisco 
market. The lumber cut in the mining counties is mostly used 
near home, large amounts being consumed for sluices, flumes, 
and in other mining enterprises. 

The method of getting the logs to the mills in Humboldt 
county is peculiar. The mills are all on the shores of Hum- 
boldt Bay, which is surrounded by flat land six or eight 
miles wide. Through this flat land run tide-water sloughs or 
channels, into which brooks run from ravines in the hills. The 
land in this county has all been Federal property, and has been 
open to pre-emption ; and most of the lumbermen have laid 
claim to the tracts where they work, or have bought them 
Avith state-school warrants, under which any of the Federal 



OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 307 

land in the state open to pre-emption, may be purchased. The 
lumbermen owning claims along the sloughs, drag their logs 
to the water and tumble them in. Those owning claims along 
the ravines, at the heads of the sloughs, have a wooden tram- 
way made by laying down long poles, about six inches in 
diameter and four feet apart. On this tramway runs a wagon 
with four wheels, each wheel of solid wood eight inches wide, 
and from two to three feet in diameter, made of a transverse 
section of a tree. On this wagon one or two logs are placed 
at a time, and two mules easily haul the load down hill to the 
slough, and then haul the empty wagon back again. The 
slope in these little ravines is very gradual, so thei^ is no diffi- 
culty either in hauling the load down, or the wagon up. The 
tiiickness of the logs varies from sixteen inches (nothing 
smaller is sawn) to nine feet. The average thickness is four 
feet and a half; seven feet is a common thickness in redwood. 
Of pine and spruce logs the largest are five feet through ; the 
average thickness is three feet. The greater the thickness of 
a log, the shorter it is cut. The ordinary lengths of saw-logs 
are fourteen, sixteen, eighteen, twenty, twenty-four, and thirty- 
two feet. Redwood is rarely sawn more than twenty feet 
long ; spruce and pine usually of that length or longer. A 
good lumberman will cut down a redwood tree three feet in 
diameter in an hour ; a tree five feet in diameter in three 
hours and a half; a tree seven feet in diameter in six hours. 
Ordinarily two choppers work together, one on each side of 
the tree, and then, of course, they fell it in half the time that 
would be required for one man alone. They use the Ameri- 
can axe and American axe-handle ; the handle being about a 
foot longer than is used in common chopping. After the tree 
is down, it is cut into saw-logs with a cross-cut saw, managed 
by one man. It has been found that one man can make a 
longer stroke than two, and the lenjxth of the sti-oke is a mat- 
ter of much importance to " clear the saw," or throw out the 
saw-dust ; so the handle at one end of the common cross-cut 
saw is knocked off, and it is then held like the ordinary hand- 



308 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORXIA. 

saw. The logs in the ravines are all cut within a hundred 
yards of the tram-way, to which they are dragged by oxen. 
The logs once thrown into the slough, are made into rafts 
from jfifry to one hundred yards long, and from ten to forty feet 
wide. Tlie outer logs of the rafts are fistened to each other 
at the ends, by a little chain with a tooth or dog at each end, 
and one dog is driven into each log. There are t^ien ropes 
running across in several places to keep it from spreading out 
in the middle. This is a very easy and simple method of mak- 
ing a raft and the logs are not injured in the least. When the 
raft is all complete, the lumbermen get on it, and float with 
the tide doT^n to the mills, which are on the shore of the bay 
near the mouth of the slough. The distance from the point 
where the rafts are made to the mills, varies from three to 
eight miles. When the tide turns, the raft is made fast to a 
tree or stump on the shore, and the loggers wait until the ebb 
commences again. Two tides will usually carry a raft to the 
mill. Every mill has a boom or enclosure for logs. This en- 
closure consists merely of large and long logs chained together 
and floating on the surflice of the water, of a small slough or 
cove. When the raft arrives the boom is opened, the raffc 
pulled in and surveyed. The logs are generally cut by com- 
panies of " loggers" who devote themselves to that business, 
and sell their logs to the mills. The survey is made by a 
surveyor, a public ofiicer of the county, who is under bonds. 
Pie receives ten cents per one thousand feet of lumber, board 
measure, one-half to be paid by the loggers and one-half by 
the mill. The thickness of the log is taken at the small end, 
and one-fourth is thrown ofl" for waste. The large logs will 
usually produce more lumber, and the small ones less than the 
amount indicated by this mode of measurement. In some places 
along the streams it is not convenient to make tram-ways, so the 
logs are cut in the summer and are piled up on the bank until 
the heavy rains of winter come, when there is enough water 
to carry the logs down, and then they are thrown in. The 
current carries them down to the slough, where the channel is 



OTHEK BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 309 

wide and the current more moderate, and there they are 
caught by a boom, Avhich is made by driving a heavy pile into 
the bank on e:ich side, and cliaining a large and long log to it. 
These two logs are chained together at their lower ends, and 
thus hold all the logs coming down from above. The boom 
logs may be three or four feet in diameter, and seventy-five feet 
in length. A little stream, a foot deep and three feet widp in 
the summer, will increase its volume of water a hundred-fold 
in winter, and carry down logs ten feet in diameter. Such a 
brook often supplies five million feet (board measure) of logs 
in a season. 

There is no place in the world where the average thickness 
of the logs sawn in the saw-mills, is so large as in Humboldt 
county, and the mills are built with special reference to the 
size of the logs. The frames are made very large and strong, 
and the saws are of proportionate length. The saws used in 
the mills are of four kinds : the single-gate saw, the gang-saws 
in a gate, the muley-saw, and the circular saw. The single- 
gate saw is fastened in a frame or gate, which plays up and 
down. This saw is used for sawing small logs, and is not 
found in very large mills. The gang-saws are a set of saws 
fastened in a frame parallel to each other. In some gangs 
there are twenty-four saws" side by side, and they cut a log 
into boards at one movement. The gang-saws move slowly and 
make smooth lumber. All the boards, plank, joists, rafters, 
and studding, are cut with gang-saws. The largest logs cut 
■with gang-saws are not more than three feet and a half through. 
The muley-saw is an upright saw, which is fastened at the 
lower end to a shaft connecting with the steam-engine or 
water-power, and the upper end is loose, though it plays in a 
groove to keep it straight. The muley is used for cutting the 
largest logs into bolts, and taking off slabs, so as to reduce 
the logs to a size suitable for other saws to work upon. The 
muley-saw makes three hundred strokes in a minute, whereas 
the gate-saw makes only about one hundred. The gate of 
a gate-saw large enough to saw logs nine feet in diameter, 



310 EESOrRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

would be too heavy for coiiYenience or quick ^vork. Tlie cir- 
cular saws are used for cutting all the thin siding, pickets, and 
laths. The largest circular saws are fifty-two inches in diam- 
eter, leaving about twenty-four inches on each side of the axle. 
When large logs are to be sawm with circular saws, one saw 
is put above the other, and one cuts into the log fi'om above, 
and the other from below, so that they can saw a log four feet 
in diameter. The frame-work for the circular-saw mills is 
lighter than that necessary for the upright saws ; and circular- 
saw mills are not nnfrequently moved about on wagons from 
one place to another. The circular saw is used almost exclu- 
sively in the Sierra Nevada. In Mendocino county and at 
Santa Cruz, the muley and circular saws are used without the 
gang-saws. The cost of sawing lumber is about the same 
with the circular saw as with the upright saw. The circular 
saw is more dangerous to the sawyer, and requires more skill 
in mechanics, so the wages of a man to manage a circular saw 
are one hundred and iifty dollars per month, while the wages 
of a man for an upright saw are only sixty dollars. The bark 
of the redwood is always taken off before the log is put into 
the mill. A tree seven feet in diameter M^ill make four thou- 
sand feet of lumber, on an average. In Mendocino county 
the logs are cut in the summer along the little streams, and in 
the winter they are carried down by the high water to the 
mills, where they are caught by large booms, but as the rivers 
are large "with fierce currents, these booms are sometimes 
broken, when millions of feet of logs are swept out to sea and 
Jost, The lumber after being sawn, is shipped to San Fran- 
cisco in schooners, varying from one hundred and fifty to 
three hundred tons burden. The freight is eight or nine dol- 
lars per one thousand feet. !Most of the trees convenient for 
the lumbermen near the mills in ]\rendocino county, have been 
cut away ; but about Humboldt Bay the supply will last many 
years. In the Sierra Nevada, the circular-saw mills ordinarily 
move from place to place, so as to have the timber near at 
liand. In the valleys of Eel River there are hundreds of red- 



OTHER BRANCHES OF IXDrSTRY. 311 

wood trees twenty feet in diameter, nnd one measuring twenty- 
eight feet. On the trail from Humboldt Bay to Trinidad, there 
are very large trees, and indeed all along the coast, from Eel 
River to the Klamath, there are numerous trees of mammoth 
size. 

The spruce cut at Humboldt Bay is light and is used for 
packing-boxes. The redwood is used for siding, furniture, 
raih'oad-sleepers, telegraph-poles, fence-posts, and all kinds of 
liouse-work, inside and out. The fragrant cedar has an odor 
suggestive of a mixture of turpentine and ottar of roses, and is 
used for cupboards, clothes-presses, and inside-work of houses. 
Fir is used for fence-boards, studding, rafters, joists, and 
plank, but the grain is too coarse for inside-work of houses. 
Most of the lumber cut in the Sierra Nevada is sugar-pine, a 
clear, good wood, which is the chief material for inside work 
and furniture in the mining districts. 

The principal kinds of split lumber produced in California, 
are fence-posts, rails, pickets, and shingles. The redwood-tree 
splits very freely, smoothly, and straight ; and furnishes nearly 
all the split lumber of the coast. It is a favorite tree for fence- 
posts, telegraph-poles, and railroad-sleepers, because of its 
great durability under ground, lasting three or four times as 
long as any other wood in common use. For split lumber, the 
tree is cut down and divided with a cross-cut saw, in the same 
manner as for saw-logs. The choice of the trees for splitting 
is important, as they differ greatly in the straightness of the 
grain, and the facility of splitting. Those trees which grow 
in places exposed to the wind are often twisted, and the wood 
is full of curls, and will not open without splintering. Where 
the wood twists, indications of the course of the grain will 
usually be found in the course of the seams in the bark. The 
best trees are those with a straight, perpendicular growth, 
preserving nearly the same thickness one hundred feet up, as 
at the surface of the ground, with no limbs for one hundred 
and fifty feet, with thin, smooth bark, seamed with perpendic- 
ular lines. It is a pleasure to strike an axe into such a tree. 



312 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

The length of the log depends upon the kind of lumber wanted. 
Posts are seven feet long ; fence-rails ten or twelve feet ; 
pickets from five to seven feet ; rafters, joists, and boards from 
twelve to twenty feet. The work of splitting usually com- 
mences at the end nearest the root of the tree. The lumber- 
man draws a straight line with a pencil across the end of the 
log, and through the centre, avoiding any knot or curl appa- 
rent in the wood. He then sets his axe in this line and drives 
it with a stroke or two of the maul half an inch into the wood, 
takes it out, and moves a little further along till he has opened 
the line across the log. Then he sets the axe in the log near 
the centre, and drives it in with the maul several inches deep ; 
then takes another axe and drives it in on the other side of 
the centre, and when the second axe has entered two inches, 
the log, if a good one, will split across the end. He introduces 
iron w^edges in the end and drives them in, and takes out the 
axes ; and then uses wooden wedges or gluts, first at tlie end, 
and then at the side of the log. In subdividing the log, he 
always tries to have as much wood on one side of the wedge 
as on the other ; for if there be more than an equal share of 
wood on one side of the wedge, the split will not run straight 
with the grain, but will gradually approach the weaker side, 
so that the piece split off will be smaller at one end than at 
the other. The redAvood when well managed splits so beauti- 
fully, that boards are frequently made twelve feet long, a foot 
wide and an inch thick, and almost as smooth as if sawn. One 
of the most important places in the state for the manufacture 
of split lumber is Lexington, on the Santa Cruz mountain, fif- 
teen miles southwestward from San Jos6. Fence-posts made 
four inches thick, six inches wide, and seven feet long ; fence- 
rails ten or twelve feet long, two or three inches thick, and 
six inches wide ; pickets six and a half feet long, three inches 
square ; and shingles eighteen inches long. The posts and 
rails are sold at eight cents apiece ; the pickets at twenty-five 
dollars per thousand ; and the shingles at four dollars and fifty 
cents per thousand. 



OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 313 

§ 229. Fishing. — The rivers of C:ilifornia and the waters of 
the ocean near its coast abound with fish. Trout are caught 
in the little streams, sahnon in the Sacramento, and San Joa- 
quin, and the rivers emptying into the ocean north of San Fran- 
cisco Bay, and a great variety of fish are caught in the ocean. 

Our fisheries are as yet so limited in extent that few fish 
are salted, nearly all going while fresh to supply the market 
of the towns on the coast. Salmon is the only fish salted 
for export. The species of salmon caught in our waters is 
called the Quinnat salmon. They are born in the rivers, go 
out to sea when three or four months old, stay out at sea 
some months, probably not less than fifteen months, and then 
return to the river in which they were born, there to spawn. 
The Quinnat salmon, as found in our Avaters, averages ten 
pounds in weight and sometimes grows to sixty pounds. It 
enters our rivers in November and remains about four months. 
Before our rivers were kept in a continual state of muddiness 
by the gold miners, the salmon ascended every brook in the 
Sierra Nevada, large enough for a fish to swim in, but now 
they do not leave the large rivers nor ascend them far. The 
salmon in clear water ofier fine sport to the fisherman with the 
fly, but in California they are caught only as a matter of busi- 
ness, and always in the gill-net, which has meshes just large 
enough to let the fish get his head in, and then the twine 
catches him behind the gills and holds him. The net is not 
dragged, but is stretched across or partly across the river and 
is allowed to drift with the current down stream, a distance 
of some hundreds of yards, perhaps a quarter or even half a 
mile, the fishermen accompanying it in a boat. The net has 
lead sinkers at the bottom and cork floats at the top, so as to 
keep it upright, and it is not so deep as to catch on the bottom. 
The fish are swimming up the river, so they of course run into 
the net. A large number of sahnon are taken in Eel River, 
Humboldt county, and great quantities might be caught in the 
Klamath and other streams along the northern coast. A few 
young salmon varying from three to six inches in length, are 



314 KESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

caught while on their way ont to sea, with fine nets in the shal- 
low waters of San Francisco Bay. The Qiunnat sahnon is fat 
when it enters the fresh waters from the ocean, but gradually 
grows lean, and the color, which is light yellowish-red, changes 
to a deeper shade as it ascends the rivers. The meat becomes 
leaner, poorer in flavor, and redder in color in proportion to 
the length of time that it remains in fresh water; but the 
little ones, which have never seen the salt water, have a more 
delicate meat than the larger ones fresh from the ocean. No 
attempt has yet been made to breed fish for our rivers, though 
it might evidently be done to a profit in many of the streams ; 
but whether in the Sierra Nevada, Avhere the mud abounds, is 
doubtful. Yet the probabilities of success are suflicient to 
justify the trial. Fifteen years ago the salmon regularly as- 
cended all, or nearly all, the mountain streams to points above 
any of the present mining camps, where the waters are as clear 
now as they were in 1847. The rule is known to be general 
and supposed to be universal, that the salmon leave the ocean 
in the stream from which they entered it ; and it is supj^osed 
further that they go to the very branch or brook in which they 
were born. It is well known that there is a salmon in the Kla- 
math River never seen in Humboldt Bay, and various species 
in the Columbia never found in the waters of California, and 
salmon in the Quiniault River, Washington territory, not found 
yet in any other stream ; and the Indians of Oregon say that 
certain tributaries of the Columbia have species never caught 
in any other place. If then a million of eggs were hatched at 
the head-waters of the Sacramento River, there would be reason 
to hope that they would return to spawn there. 

The legislature has passed an act in regard to the salmon 
fishery. It pro^■ides that the run of salmon shall not be ob- 
structed by any dam, weir, fence, or fixed stop-net ; and that 
no person shall catch with a net in the San Joaquin River, or 
any tributary, in August, September, and the first half of Oc- 
tober ; or in any other salmon stream of the state in August, 
October, December, and January ; nor shall any ^^erson, save 



OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 315 

Indians, sell fresh salmon during the season when fisliing with 
the net is prohibited. There is no legal prohibition against 
taking other fish, or shell-fish at any season of the year. 

The halibut are not sufficiently abundant on the coast to 
make the fishery for them a distinct branch of business. They 
are caught with a hook at sea in water varying from thirty to 
fifty fathoms deep, on rocky bottoms. The line called a " trawl- 
line" is about six hundred yards along, w4th numei'ous short 
lines and hooks, and is left six or eight hours in a place, and 
when drawn up has halibut, flounders, rock-fish, turbot, cod, 
and nearly all the large biting fish that come to the market. 
The bait used is chiefly sardines and herrings. 

The mackerel {Scomber diego), a good fish, but smaller than 
the Atlantic mackerel, is caught with a hook ofl" the coast 
south of Point Concei^tion. It is a surface fish, and bites 
greedily at a bit of white rag or shining fish- skin jerked 
through the water. It does not frequent bays, but is caught 
in the harbors of Catalina Island. A number of vessels are 
now employed in the mackerel fishery of California. 

The little brown rock-fish (Sebastes auriculatiis)^ is caught 
in San Francisco Bay about the wharves ; but the other 
species are only found out in the open sea. They stay 
where the bottom is rocky, eat crabs and shell-fish, and bite 
freely at hooks. Most of them are caught near Punta Reyes 
and the Farallone Islands. The rock-fish are in the market 
and of equally good quality throughout the year. 

The turbot is caui^fht with the trawl-line throufyhout the 
year. Soles are caught with small mesh-nets in the shallow 
waters of the bay of San Francisco at all seasons of the year. 
There is no separate fishery for them ; they are caught with 
numerous other species of small fishes, among which the 
smelts have an important place. The smelts are much more 
abundant than on the Atlantic coast, go in large shoals, and 
are cau<i^ht at all seasons. A \\xy^q business mij^ht be done in 
salting them, but they are caught only for the fresh market. 
The anchovies are very numerous m San Francisco Bay, where 



316 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

thev try to keep in sboals by themselves, but do DOt sneceed, 
and are oaugbt with other small tishes in nets. They are 
fully eqiuil to the European anchovy, and will soon become an 
important article of commerce. At present most of those 
taken are eaten fresh^ and only a few are potted. They are 
caught at all seasons of the year. Sardines are also abundant, 
and of a tlavor equal to those on the coast of France, but 
laro-er. Thev are found in ail the ba^'S alonjr the coast from 
May to October. An attempt was made several years ago to 
pickle sardines for the market, but it f;iiled^ The herring is not 
abundant on the coast of Calitoruia, or at least is not found 
here in such dense shoals as in the Athmtic, and our species is 
smaller. It is caught with a net in the shallow waters of the 
ba\*s. There are no shad in the waters of California. Shrimps 
are caught in the shallow waters of the bay of San Francisco 
with small mesh-nets, but are becoming very scarce The 
sturgeon visits the rivers of the Atlantic states for only a 
couple of months in a year, but it is abundant in the CaUfor- 
nian rivers at all seasons. It never bites, the mouth being a 
round hole, always open, surrounded with gristle. In the 
Eastern states the sturgeon is often harpooned, but here it is 
caught only with nets. The meat is coarse, and is sold at one- 
fourth or one-sixth the price demanded for the meat of other 
fishes. The sturgeon might be salted, but nothing has been 
done in that business yet. An attempt was made several 
years ago in San Francisco to establish the business of prepar- 
ing caWare from the roe of the sturgeon, but it did not prove 
protitable and it was abandoned. Sea-bass, a fish of tine, deli- 
cate flavor, and highly prized by epicures, is caught with hand- 
lines outside the heads of San Francisco Bay, and in the bay 
near Saucelito with nets during the spring and summer. It is 
not abundant. The sheepshead, an excellent fish, is caught off 
S;mta Barbara with hand-lines during the summer. It should 
be brought to the market alive in smacks, for it loses its deli- 
cacy of flavor soon :ifter death. The jewfish is abuud:int 
south of Point Conception, and may easily be taken with a 



OxHEIi BRANCHES OP INDUSTRY. 317 

hook or harpoon. It spends most of its time at the bottom in 
both deep and shoal water, but frequently conies to the surface, 
and according to report sleeps there. It also goes into lagoons, 
and likes to be near the kelp. They grow very large, some- 
times to weigh five hundred pounds, and as their flesh is very 
good, a profitable business might be made of fishing for them. 

S^iarks are taken by Chinamen for food and by Americans 
for their oil. The common sharks caught by tlie Chinamen, 
perhaps more properly called " dog-fish" {Acanthea suclicyi 
and Triakis /asciatus), are taken in nets during the summer 
months and are dried in the sun. They are from three to five 
feet long, and contain a large amount of meat, which is never 
eaten by white men, but seems to have lavor among the 
Mongols. The fish is cut open by a dexterous and quick 
stroke of a large knife along the back-bone, and is then dried 
without the use of salt. The fins are considered a delicacy. 
In Humboldt Bay the true shark {Kotorhynchus maculatus)^ 
from five to twelve feet in length, is taken with spears. Three 
men have a flat-bottomed boat twenty feet long and four feet 
wide, with which they go into the shallow waters of the bay, 
whither the sharks resort in pursuit of the sardines. The 
liver is taken from the shark and the remainder thrown away. 
Each liver yields from one to eight pounds of oil. The spears 
have a handle eight feet long, which is loose and comes out 
of the spear-head after the shark is struck. If the handle Avere 
fastened in the sj^ear-head, it would be broken by the struggles 
of the fish. A rope attached to the spear-head suftices to hold 
the shark, and by its means he is drawn up to the side, of the 
boat, wliere he is struck by an axe on the head, and thus 
dispatched. The shark season lasts only about two months, 
during July and August. The oil is used for lubricating the 
machinery of the saw-mills about the bay, and sells for one 
dollar per gallon ; and so long as the season lasts the fisher- 
men make from five to ten dollars per day. 

§ 230. Hunting. — The principal game quadrupeds and birds 
of California are grizzly bear, elk, deer, antelope, hare, rabbit ; 



318 EESOURCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

the gray Canada brant, the white goose; th-'i canvas-back, 
mallard, sprigtail, spoonbill, and summer ducks , the widgeon, 
the teal, the English black-breasted, sand, and lowiches snipe ; 
the curlew, the mountain partridge, the valhy quail, and vari- 
ous kinds of grouse. Nobody makes a business of hunting 
the grizzly bear ; to attack him is so dangerous and to kill him 
so difficult, that many hunters will not shoot at him even when 
he comes in their way. A large number of them, however, 
are killed every year, and their carcasses are seen in the meat 
markets of San Francisco at all seasons of the year. The meat 
resembles pork in its greasiness, but it is coarser in texture 
and rank in flavor. It nauseates sOme delicate stomachs. 
The Spanish-Californians sometimes lasso the bear. • When 
four or five of them, well mounted and provided with good 
saddles and reatas, surprise a bear in an open plain, they all 
beset him at once, and while one throws the lasso over his 
head, another catches him by a hind-leg, and a third by a fore- 
leg, and then two horses in front, but at a little distance from 
each other, drag him along, and the third and perhaps a fourth 
horse follows him, each one keeping his lasso stretched, so that 
even if the bear should succeed in breaking one reata or slip- 
ping it off, he will still be held fast by several others. He is 
thus dragged to a pen, where he is kept for a bull-fight or 
some other amusement. 

It is only a few years since the elk were abundant on the 
Sacramento and San Joaquin, but they have now disappeared 
in those places, and are found in small numbers along the 
northern coast, where they will soon be exterminated. The 
meat resembles that of the deer, but is a little coarser in grain. 
The elk are shy animals, have a very quick ear, and are more 
difiicult to approach than any other game animal in the state, 
unless the mountain sheep be excepted. They ordinarily He 
hidden in thickets during the middle of the day, and feed 
about sunrise and sunset, at which times the hunters seek 
them. 

The black-tailed deer are good game for the hunter. They 



OTHER BRANCHES OT I^^JDC/SIRYT. 319 

may be approached with more ease than the Virginia deer, run 
with a steady gait, and when disturbed do not run so far. 
The deer east of the Mississippi go with a run and a jump; 
the Pacific deer move with a steady run. Their meat is not 
BO sweet as that of their eastern congeners. The deer hve 
near the timber, and are found along the coast and in the 
Sierra Nevada. They were at one time very abundant but 
are now rapidly decreasing. The best place for hunting thena 
is in Mendocino county. There is no deer-hunting on horse- 
back, nor by large parties. The hunters go out alone or in 
small parties. Occasionally a deer is caught with the lasso, 
but this requires an excellent horse, a first-rate vaquero, and 
a good piece of open ground where the horse can have a fair 
chase and the vaquero can swing his reata. 

The antelope lives in the open plain and in the desert. The 
valley of the San Joaquin was once full of great herds of them, 
but they, like other large game, have become rare now. They 
are shy, but inquisitive also, and are easily enticed to approach 
the hunter, who hides himself behind a rock, and fastening a 
white handkerchief to his ramrod, waves it back and forth. 
The antelope, like the deer, is occasionally caught with the 
reata, but these occasions do not occur once in the year, and, 
when they do occur, th«y establish the fame of the horse and 
rider engaged in the exploit. 

There is one pack of hounds in the state, and they are some- 
times, but rarely, used for hunting coyotes and foxes, as well 
as deer. 

The wild geese and ducks are very abundant in California 
from September to March. They spend the winter in the tules 
of San Francisco Bay and tributary waters, and in the spring 
they migrate to the north. While here, they afford profitable 
employment to a number of hunters, who are of two classes — 
the " boat-shooters" and the " ox-shooters." The boat-shooters 
go in parties of two or three, each party having a sloop of its 
own. The sloop goes to the slough where the game abounds, 
and there every man starts in his skiff, with three double-bar- 



320 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

relied shot-guns. He usually shoots first at the ducks or geese 
while they are in the water, and afterward again and again as 
they rise and fly. Sometimes he goes ashore, to shoot them 
while feeding. The geese spend the night in the water — gen- 
erally in a slough or pond — and rise about daybreak, to feed 
in the fields of grain, grass, or wild oats. They remain there 
duriog a considerable part of the morning, return to spend the 
middle of the day in the water, go back to the fields in the 
afternoon, and at sunset take to the water again for the night. 
The ducks get most of their food in the tules, and are not 
often shot on the land. 

The ox-shooter stalks his game. lie has a trained ox, which 
walks before him and hides him from the geese or ducks until 
within good shooting-distance. The boat-shooters average 
thirty ducks a day during the season ; and a good ox-shooter 
will sometimes kill one hundred and fifty geese in a day. 

Snipe, curlew, and quail, are the game for sportsmen who 
hunt for their amusement, and the modes of hunting them are 
the same as those in the Eastern states. 

Hunting is an unimportant interest in California as com- 
pared with fishing, and must continually decrease in impor- 
tance, while the fisheries will increase. 

A game-law prohibits the killing of quail, partridge, mallard 
and summer duck, from the 1st of March to the 15th of Sep- 
tember ; and elk, deer, and antelope, during the first half of 
the year ; and prohibits the selling of the game slain during 
the forbidden season. 

§ 231. Ilouse-huilding. — In the building of houses, the Cali- 
fornians, like Americans generally, are exj^ert and quick. It 
is not uncommon to see a wooden dwelling-house commenced 
and finished within a month. Brick houses are built so fast, 
that the mortar has scarcely time to dry and harden as the 
walls go up. Most of the houses are of wood, and of the kind 
called " Balloon" or " Chicago" frames, fastened together with 
nails, without tenons and mortices, and with no upright posts 
thicker than two by four inches. This kind of a frame, called 



I 



OTUEll BRANCnES OP INDUSTRY. 321 

*' Balloon" from its lightness, and " Chicago" because they first 
came extensively into use in that plice about fifteen years ago, 
appears very strange to a carpenter familiar only -with the old- 
fashioned frames held together by tenons and mortices ; but 
■weak as the balloon-frame appears, it is really the strongest 
kind of a wooden building ; and it is not unfrequently made 
four or five stories high, whereas the heavier frame very rarely 
reaches three stories. 

In the balloon-frame, the sills, instead of being eight, ten, or 
twelve inches square, are only two or three inches by six or 
eight ; and they rest on numerous studs, which again rest on 
the ground. The sills are nailed together at the corners. The 
studs are not morticed into the sills, but nailed upon them. 
The lower joists stand upon the sills, and the upper ones rest 
upon an inch board "let into" the studs to which they are 
nailed. On the top of the studs is no heavy plate, but only a 
board. At the corners two studs are put side by side. Each 
stud is hoisted to its place separately, so there is no " raising." 
Wooden houses are all covered with shingles. White pine, 
imported from the Eastern states, is used to a considerable 
extent for the frames and casings of doors and windows, and 
for other inside-work ; and nearly all the doors and window- 
sashes are imported ready made. 

Three-fourths of the houses in the state are of wood ; the 
other fourth are of brick and adobes. Stone houses are very 
rare. Brick buildings are numerous in the business-streets of 
the cities and towns. Every town of note has its fire-proof 
brick stores, with iron doors and window-shutters, and its 
roof of brick laid in mortar. The bricks are made in t-his 
state, and the lime is burned here. Brick buildings not con- 
structed to be fire-proof, have shingled roofs. There are a 
few buildings with fronts of granite, which for one house was 
brouirht from China, and that for others from the Eastern states. 

Stone houses are very rare in California ; it would almost be 
possible to count all of them on the fingers. Nearly all the 
dwelhngs in the counties bordering on the coast, from Monte- 
15 



322 BESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

rey southward, are made of adobes, or snn-dried bricks ; but 
most of the houses built of late, and all the elegant structures, 
are of wood or brick. 

When an adobe house is to be built, the adobes are made 
very near the place, for they are too heavy to be hauled far. 
The earth to make adobes should be a sandy or gravelly clay, 
which will not crack in drying. A pure loam or pure clay 
will not do. The material having been found, it is dug uji, 
and mixed with water and some straw, unti] it makes a thick 
mud. Not far from the pit the earth is levelled oif, as a yard 
where the adobes are to be dried. The adobe is from three 
to six inches thick, from ten to twenty inches wide, and from 
a foot to two feet long:. The mould is made of the size which 
the adobes are to have, without top or bottom. It is placed 
on the ground ; the mud is thrown in, until the mould is filled ; 
the top is scraped off level with a board ; and the mould is 
lifted up, and moved to another place. The mud must be so 
thick, that it will retain its shape after the mould is removed. 
In twenty-four hours the adobe is so hard, that it will stand 
on one side, and in three or four days it is dry enough to be 
used for building. Its sides are rough and its corners broken, 
but it serves to make a house. Adobe walls are often made 
three feet thick, rarely less than a foot and a half The mortar 
used is of the same mud of which the adobes were made. The 
walls are usually protected by wide eaves, and sometimes the 
roof projects six or eight feet, so as to make a corridor running 
entirely round the house. If the adobes be exposed to the 
rain, they are soon washed down. The w\alls have a founda- 
tion of stone laid about eight inches high on the suiface of the 
ground. 

In many of the adobe houses there is no floor save the bare 
earth. These dwellings are very cool in summer and warm in 
winter ; and in old times, when the work was all done by In- 
dians, they were cheop, but now it costs more to build a neat 
house of adobes than of wood. Many of the old adobe houses 
are still covered with the tiles baked by the Mexicans ; those 



II 



OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 323 

built of lute liave ncnrly all sliingle roofs. In Los Angeles 
county, the roofs are generally made of asphaltum, obtained 
from the bituminous springs, of which there are a number 
along the southern coast. The rafters are covered with boards 
or cane, upon which earth is thrown, and upon that the asphal- 
tum is placed. Sometimes the asphaltum is poured upon the 
earth in a melted condition ; sometimes it is thrown on in 
hard lumps during the summer, and the melting is left to the 
heat of the sun. The asphaltum cracks in the cold and melts 
in the sun ; so the eaves are dripping in July and August, and 
in the winter, if a rain comes immediately after a severe cold, 
the roofs are certain to leak. The cracks are always filled up 
again when a hot sun shines on the roof and melts the asphal- 
tum. Most of the dwellings are surrounded by verandas or 
corridors, which are the most pleasant parts of the houses in 
the summer-time. Some of the dwellings are built in the form 
of a hollow square, with a paved court inside, planted with 
trees, and with a corridor running round. This corridor is the 
favorite place for spending the day, and here visitors are gen- 
erally received. 

§ 232. Furniture^ etc. — Nearly all the fine furniture of the 
state is imported. The cabinet-makers' shops are few and 
small. The costly articles of fine wood-work, made on a large 
scale in California, are the billiard-tables ; and these are made 
of unsurpassable excellence and with unsurpassed elegance. 
Our agricultural implements, wagons, carriages, omnibuses, 
and coaches, are mostly imported ; and when they are made 
here, imported wood is used. No hubs, spokes, or felloes, are 
made in the state. It may be that all our agricultural imple- 
ments will soon be manufactured at home, for a contract has 
lately been made to employ one hundred of the state-prison 
convicts in this labor ; but we shall probably continue to im- 
port our wagon-lumber, for very little of the Californian tim- 
ber is strong enough for such uses. Our tubs are mostly made 
here, and are of good quality. We have many well-built 
wooden bridges in the state. 



324 KESOUECES OF GALIFOKXIA. 

California has built many schooners, and one war-vessel of 
fifteen hundred tons, but will never construct many shij^s. Her 
evergreen-oak, laurel, and madroua, are good for ships' knees 
and frames ; but the trees are rare and costly, and far from 
the shipyards : while Puget Sound is so near, and has such 
very great advantages over us, that we cannot compete with 
Washington territory. 

There are a great many excellent roads in the mountainous 
districts of the state, but the general character of our high- 
ways is poor — muddy in winter and dusty in summer. Mac- 
adamized roads are few. Slowly we are getting railroads. 
There is one, twenty miles long, between Sacramento and 
Folsom ; another, forty-five miles long, is being made from 
Folsom to jMarysville ; one has been commenced between Yal- 
lejo and Marysviile ; and another is to be soon begun between 
San Francisco and San Jose. 

All our cotton and cotton goods are imported. There is 
not a cotton-carding machine, spinning-jenny, or loom, in the 
state. No linen is grown or manufactured here. All our fine 
woollen goods are imported. We have only two woollen-mills 
in the state, and they make only blankets and coarse cloths. 

Large quantities of leather are tanned in California, but it is 
all heavy. We tan no fine calfskin, morocco, or kid. Nearly 
all our boots and shoes for men's wear, and all for women, are 
imported. There are small shops where men's boots and shoes 
are made by the single pair to order after measure taken, and 
the customers in most cases are desirous of having a very ele- 
gant fit ; but there are no large factories to make boots by the 
thousand. 

We make no gunpowder, fire-works, fire-crackers, pitch, tar, 
or turpentine. It is said that our pine-trees do not contain the 
resinous sap to make turpentine, pitch, and rosin, and therefore 
we shall always have to import these articles. 

There are two paper-mills in California, one of which makes 
printing-paper and the other straw wrapping-paper. We still 
import much of -our printing and wrapping paper, and all of 



OTHliR BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. ?,9.5 

our writing-pa]>er. ]\[nch of our coarse sonp is mado here , all 
fine soaps are imported. Nearly all our candles are imported. 
We have no furnaces for smelting iron-ore, and no forges to 
make wrought iron or steel. AH our cutlery, stoves, cast iron, 
firearms, cooking-utensils, nails, screws, locks, hinges, tin-ware, 
copper, and copper-ware, are imported. So also are all our 
lead and shot, wire, tin, zinc, solder, and sheathing-metal. All 
our bottles are imported. A bottle-factory was established in 
San Francisco, to make bottles out of broken glass, of which 
much could be obtained in the large towns. This factory, 
however, was shortly abandoned ; but there is a report that 
it will soon be established a^jain. 



S26 ilESOCIECES OF CALIFORKIA. 



CnAPTER X. 

COMMERCE. 

§' 233. General Advantages. — California is now the most 
important commercial state on the shores of the North Pacitic, 
and it Avill continue to hold its present relative position. Near- 
ly all the foreign commerce will be done by San Francisco, 
which has advantages superior to those of any other place on 
the coast between the Isthmus of Panama and Puget Sound, 
or on the coast of Asia. Her only equal, in the waters of the 
Pacific, is Melbourne. Several ports of China and Japan may 
have as much shipping ; but the people of those countries are 
only semi-civihzed, and we shall take their trade, and make 
them tributary to us. 

In estimating the commercial advantages of California, we 
must consider the yield of our gold, silver, and quicksilver 
mines ; the produce of our grain-fields, vineyards, orchards, 
and saw-mills ; the mineral resources of Western Mexico ; the 
lumber and fisheries of Washington territory and Oregon ; the 
gold of British Columbia ; the whale-oil and whale-bone of the 
North Pacific ; and the industrial products of China and Japan. 
California is in the position to be the common carrier for all 
the countries bordering on the North Pacific. Between Puget 
Sound and Valparaiso there is on this coast no port that can 
prove a dangerous rival to San Francisco. As the population, 
wealth, and industry of this coast increase, and as the foreign 
commerce of China and Japan becomes more extended, the 
trade of San Francisco must continue to grow in at least an 
equal ratio. The increase, in every event, is certain. 



COMMERCE. 327 

Our chief commercial city is forty days' sail from China, and 
fifteen from Ilonohilu. It has been proposed to establish a 
line of steamers between San Francisco and Shan^hae, but I 
doubt the necessity of such a line. Whenever the trade will 
justify it, there will be a line of swift-sailing packets, which 
can make almost as good time as steamers. There is no sea 
where sailing-vessels can make such regular and swift passages 
throughout the year as on the North Pacific, particularly if 
they sail across it from east to west or from west to east. The 
trade-winds, which blow over it toward the south, are constant, 
and equally favorable for vessels bound in either direction. 
Side-wheel steamers would be entirely unsuited for the route, 
because the wind is always from the north, and one wheel 
would be out of water nearly all the time ; but propellers, to 
be used when the wind is low, might be of service ; though 
there is reason to doubt whether they would be of sufiicient 
service to justify the additional expense. Six or seven years 
ago, a steam-propeller was employed between San Francisco 
and Honolulu, but it was soon driven off by the sailing-vessels, 
which made the trip ordinarily in about the same time, and on 
several occasions beat the steamer. 

We cannot foresee clearly the manner and rapidity of the 
development of the foreign commerce of China and Japan, but 
that it will reach a high development is certain. Three hun- 
dred and fifty millions of industrious people are not to be shut 
out from intercourse with Christendom. They have wants 
which must be supplied, and which white men alone can sup- 
ply ; and as California is the nearest state containing a large 
white population, and having a large commerce, we must have 
much to do with the business of supplying them. 

§ 234. Ih'ilnUary Population. — The present pojiulation of 
Nevada territory is about six thousand men, and the yield of 
silver and gold is estimated to amount to about one million 
dollars per year. It is now the general and confident opinion 
of Californians that the population and silver production of that 
territory will rapidly increase, and of course the increase must 



328 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

haTC a relatively favorable influence upon the commerce of 
California, from which Xevacla will obtain all her supplies. 

Oregon has a coast line of two hundred and seventy-five 
miles, from latitude 42° to 46°, and extends nearly four hun- 
dred miles from east to west. Al) that portion Ipng east of 
the Cascade Mountains (wliich are a continuation of the Sierra 
!N"evacla), comprising about two-thirds of the state, is barren, 
or nearly so. It may contain good pasture-lands and valuable 
minerals ; but, with the exception of a few fertile valleys and 
bottom-lands near the Columbia River, these have not as yet 
been discovered, or at least not occupied by white men. The 
western part of the state contains some rich placers, fine for- 
ests, and valuable land for farming, but the country is difficult 
of access. The only entrance to it from the sea is by the Co- 
lumbia River, the mouth of which is dangerous to shipping. 
There is a land entrance to Oregon from California on the 
south, and from Washington territory on the north. Oregon 
has a population of some fifty thousand, and produces about 
one million dollars in gold-dust annually. 

Washington territory has a sea-coast of two hundred miles, 
and extends six hundred miles eastward to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. The fertile strip of the territory is only about one hun- 
dred and twenty miles wide, along the Pacific ; the eastern 
portion is for the most part barren, but it contains extensive ■ 
placers of gold, which yield about three hundred thousand dol- 
lars annually, and, if reports be true, will soon yield much 
more. The population numbers about ten thousand. The fer- 
tile district west of the Cascade Mountains is penetrated to a 
depth of one hundred miles by Paget Sound and Hood's Canal, 
the finest bodies of land-locked tide-water, for the purposes of 
internal navigation, in the world. The timber of the territory 
is very valuable, abundant, and accessible, and is now shipped 
to all quarters of the globe. No country can furnish large ■ 
spars in such great abundance, or at so cheap a rate ; and this 
resource, if there were no other, would secure wealth to Wash- 
ington. Yet, in addition to these, she has extensive fisheries, 



i 



COMMEKCE. 329 

fine farming-lands, and great facilities for commerce. For these 
reasons, Washington will occupy an important place on the 
Pacific, will have a dense population, and will contribute much 
to build up the commerce and increase tJie wealth of Califor- 
nia. The climate of the western district of Washington is very- 
moist throughout the year — cool in summer, and not cold in 
winter. Ice seldom forms more than two inches in thick- 
ness, or remains more than two or three days ; but the sun is 
hidden nearly every winter by fogs and clouds, for weeks at a 
time. The climate of Washington bears as close a resemblance 
to that of Encjland as does the climate of California to that of 
Italy. 

British Columbia has a population of six thousand, yields 
about one million dollars in gold-dust annually, and 1ms fine 
forests of ship-timber along the shores of the Gulf of Georgia. 
The soil is not rich, either on the mainland or on Vancouver 
Island, and the land will not be extensively cultivated there 
until after the richer land of Washington territory has been 
occupied. 

The western part of New Mexico and Arizona is a barren 
country, unfit for tillage, but rich in minerals, which may at 
some day attract a large population. At present, its white 
inhabitants, west of the Rocky Mountains, do not number more 
than one thousand. The present silver production of Arizona 
may amount to ten thousand dollars per month. . Western Ari- 
zona and New Mexico obtain most of their imported goods 
from San Francisco. 

The population of Utah is about forty-five thousand, and 
they do much of their trading with Placerville and Los An- 
geles. 

The western coast of Mexico, from San Bias northward, has 
a population of about a million and a half, and these obtain 
many of their imported goods from San Francisco. 

The Hawaiian Islands have a population of seventy thou- 
sand, including two thousand whites, and they obtain most of 
their imported goods from San Francisco. 
15* 



330 KESOUKCES OF CALIFOT. NIA. 

Adding together the inhabitants of Nevada, Oregon, Wash- 
ington, the western parts of Xew Mexico and Arizona, the 
northwestern part of Mexico, British Cohimbia, Vancouver 
Island, and the Hawaiian IsLands, we have a total of about one 
million seven hundred thousand people ; and mineral, commer- 
cial, and industrial resources and advantages that must attract 
many more inhabitants at no distant day. _ 

§ 235. hnports. — The imports of California are about $55,- 
000,000 per year ; tliat is, we import about as much as we 
export ; and our exports amount, with gold, silver, grain, wool, 
wine, and sundries, to $55,000,000 annually. We have, how- 
ever, no exact table of our imports, for most of tliem come 
from Xew York, and, if of foreign production, have paid duty 
there, and no report of their class and value is made at the 
custom-house in San Francisco. Therefore, we cannot obtain 
such tables of the imports into our cliief port as are made at 
New York, where all the foreign goods are received direct. 
In the absence of accurate statistics, I must make an estimate 
of the values of the several classes of impoiled articles, which, 
while confessedly inexact, may yet serve to convey informa- 
tion to those who know nothing of the subject : 

The clothing and material for clothing imported in a year 
may cost us $15,000,000; provisions (among which butter is 
perhaps the most important), coffee, tea, and spices, $3,000,000 ; 
tobacco, $3,000,000 ; cutlery, hardware, and metalHc articles, 
$4,000,000 ; articles of wood, such as wagons, agricultural im- 
plements,. &c., $1,000,000 ; drugs, $1,000,000 ; boots and shoes, 
$3,000,000 ; jewelry, $1,000,000 ; coal, $1,000,000 ; hquors, 
$2,000,000; and sundries, $2,000,000 : total, $36,000,000. For 
freight on imported goods we pay $4,000,000 ; for insurance to 
foreign companies, $1,000,000 ; for interest-money on foreign 
capital, $1,000,000 ; for passenger-fares, $2,000,000 — makhig a 
total sum of $44,000,000, which is less by several millions than 
the amount of annual exports. 

§ 236. Exports. — Gold has the first place, but the exact 
amount exported is not known, for considerable quantities not 



CO]^r MERGE. 331 

reported at the custom-house, are taken away by passengers ; 
and in the amount of treasure reported by manifest for exporta- 
tion, the gold is not distinguished from the silver. The amount 
of treasure exported in 1861 was $40,639,089 57; and probar 
bly not more than Si, 000,000 of silver is included in the sum. 
Of this treasure, 832,628,010 were sent to New York, $4,054,- 
436 to England, $3,525,325 to China, $338,536 to Panama, 
$58,220 to Japan, $12,459 to Honolulu, $9,000 to Manilla, $6,000 
to Singapore, and $7,100 to Mexico. As compared with pre- 
vious years, the export of treasure in 1861 shows a falhng off 
from 1860 of $1,664,256; of $7,025,908 from 1859 ; $6,908,936 
from 1858; $8,337,608 from 1857; $8,247,454 from 1856; 
$4,543,542 from 1855; $10,689,564 from 1854; $16,691,935 
fi-om 1853; $5,947,055 from 1852; and $1,943,606 as com- 
pared with 1851. The total treasure export in 1850 was $27,- 
676,346, and $4,921,250 in 1849, as manifested at the custom- 
house. From 1848 to 1854, large sums were carried away by 
passengers. 

After the gold, in importance as an export, we may place 
silver; which, however, is not all produced within the borders 
of California, and which is surpassed in value by wheat. But 
as one of the permanent exports of San Francisco, silver will 
undoubtedly have the next place to gold. The silver contained 
in the gold of California amounts to about $200,000 annually; 
and that produced by Washoe may have amounted in 1861 to 
$2,500,000. Hitherto very little silver has been exported ; but 
it is accumulating so rapidly, and it is so inconvenient, in a 
country w^here so little small coin is used, that it must be sent 
away hereafter. It is already at a discount of two per cent. 

For several years past, California has exported large quan- 
tities of wheat and flour. In 1861, we exported 1,350,783 
sacks of wheat and 170,562 barrels of flour, worth together 
$3,500,000. In 1860, the value was about $2,500,000 ; in 1859, 
about $1,100,000; in 1858, about $120,000; in 1857, about 
$70,000. However, we cannot expect that this ratio of in- 
crease can be maintained ; we have now reached the summit, 



332 EESOUECES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

and the statistics of 1862 will show a large decrease as com- 
pared with the previous year, and perhaps an entire stoppage 
of exportation. 

The quicksilver exported in 1861 amounted to 35,995 flasks, 
containing 2,699,625 pounds of metal, worth $1,079,850. The 
export was 9,348 flasks in 1860, 3,399 in 1859, 24,132 in 1858, 
27,262 in 1857, 23,740 in 1856, and 27,165 in 1855. The great 
falling ofl" in 1859 and 1860 was caused by the closing of the 
New Almaden mine, under an injunction issued at the instance 
of the federal government. 

Among the other exports of 1861 were 181,166 hides, worth 
8554,951; 3,721,998 pounds of wool, worth $507,297 ; 373,852 
sacks of barley, valued at 8355,224 ; silver-ore, valued at 8188,- 
815; copper-ore, worth 8122,580; lumber, valued at 876,748 ; 
tallow, worth 865,982 ; and wine, worth 812,399. 

The total value of the exports in 1861, other than treasure, 
was $6,988,375 ; of which we sent 82,744,537 to New York, 
81,283,391 to England, 81,078,118 to Australia, 8566,860 to 
China, and 8453,953 to Mexico. 

§ 237. Shipping. — In 1861, there were 1,981 arrivals of 
vessels, with an aggregate of 599,233 tons, at San Francisco. 
Of these, 1,538 vessels, with an aggregate measurement of 
267,698 tons, were from ports of California, Oregon, and 
Washington (domestic Pacific ports) ; 106 vessels, with 121,342 
tons, were from domestic Atlantic ports ; 42 vessels (25 from 
Great Britain, 11 from France, 4 from Hamburg, and 2 from 
Malaga), with 30,573 tons, from Europe; 31 vessels, with 12,- 
334 tons, from Australia; 27 vessels, with 28,286 tons, from 
China; 54 vessels, with 15,704 tons, from Mexico; 41 vessels 
from Vancouver Island, 17 from the Hawaiian Islands, 13 from 
the Society Islands, 7 from Japan, 17 from Chili, 11 from the 
Itussian possessions in America, and 15 from whaling-voyages. 
The average size of the vessels which arrived from domestic 
Atlantic ports was 1,144 tons ; of those from China, 1,047 tons ; 
of those from Europe, 745 tons ; and of those from domestic 
Pacific ports, 174 tons, most of the latter being little schooners, 



COIIMEKCE. 333 

while those from New York, Boston, and China, are chiefly 
American clii:)per-ships, the finest class of saiUng-vessels in the 
world. 

§ 238. Unsteadhiess of jBusi7iess. — The mercantile business 
is very lively and fluctuating in California. There is no peo- 
ple in the world who, in proportion to their numbers, import 
so largely of foreign goods, or who pay such high prices for 
them. The amount consumed is not very great, the supplies 
are irregular, and the time required to obtain shipments round 
Cape Horn about four months, and therefore it is not a very 
difficult matter to forestall the market ; and it is a frequent 
occurrence that a few wealthy men combine together and try 
to buy up all of a certain kind of merchandise, and then con- 
trol the market and raise the price. In other countries it is 
impossible to get any accurate information about the supply 
of an article, which is stored in large quantities in fifty cities 
and owned by hundreds of merchants and producers ; but in 
California the main stock of all imported goods is stored in 
San Francisco and is held by a few men. Our business of 
dealing in merchandising is therefore full of speculations, 
which, though dangerous, particularly to the stupid, are agree- 
able to the bold and enterjirising, and contribute to render 
our trade peculiar and difierent from that of other states. 

The business of California is conducted boldly. Men make 
money rapidly, spend it freely and hastily. Changes in occu- 
pation are frequent, and in wealth rapid. Hazardous specula- 
tion is the body of our commercial system. Most of our busi- 
ness men are young, and they still are under the influence of 
the feverish times of '49. Our business is unsteady. Heredi- 
tary wealth is unknown. Our rich men all came to California 
poor, and they are prominent advertisements of the victories 
that may be achieved by enterprise and bold speculation. We 
are speculators by our very position. The people who come 
to California are bold adventurers naturally. We were dis- 
satisfied with life in Europe and the Eastern states, because it 
was too slow. We came here to enjoy an exciting life and to 



334 RESOURCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

make money rapidly. Slow and sure plans are unsuited to us, 
and besides, from the unsettled nature of our trade, there is not 
the same sureness about slow modes of doing business as in 
older states. In any little random gathering of a dozen men in 
San Francisco, you Avill probably find some among them who 
have worked in the mines, and this amongst the wealthiest and 
most intelligent, as well as among the poorest. It is no un- 
common thing to see men who have been wealthy on three or 
four different occasions and then poor again. " A fire," " an 
unfortunate speculation in merchandise," " a revulsion in real 
estate," " a crash among the banks," " an unlucky investment 
in a flume," these are j)hrases used every day to explain the 
fict, that this or that man of your familiar acquaintance, though 
once rich, is now poor. When men fail they do not despair — 
and least of all those who have been rich and have fidled by 
some sudden turn in business — they hope to be rich again. A 
number of the prominent business men in San Francisco have 
been insolvent within the last five years. 

§ 239. Insolvencies. — Insolvencies, legally declared and can- 
celled by the courts, are more frequent in San Francisco, in j^ro- 
portion to its population, than in any other part of the world. 
Our laws provide that any man who declares himself unable 
to pay his debts, and petitions to be released from them, may 
obtain a judicial discharge, unless he has been guilty of fraud ; 
and as the fraud must be distinctly proved upon him before the 
discharge will be denied, the release is almost invariably ob- 
tained. The number of suits brought (wdth their debts and 
assets) in 1860, as compared with each of the five preceding 
years, has been as follows : 

Yeak No. Suits. Debts. Assets. Deficit. 

1855 197 $8,377,827 $1,519,175 $6.858,G52 

1856 146 3,401,042 657,908 2,743,134 

1857 125 2,375,899 812,417 1,503.482 

1858 90 1,940,662 658,782 1,28L880 

1859 60 706,219 208,044 498^175 

I860 QS 1,019,416 76,787 942,629 

Total 6 years, 692 $17,821,065 $3,933,113 $13,887,952 



roMMERCE. 335 

The display looks very serious. There was a regular de- 
crease from 1855, when the great failures began, down to 
1859, and then the increase began again. The amount of 
assets is proportionably smaller for 1800 than at any previous 
time, but in fict the assets are almost invariably nominal, con- 
sisting of bad debts that never can be collected, and property 
estimated at cost, but worthless in the market. It is rarely 
that a man declares himself insolvent so long as he has prop- 
erty which he can turn into money. Our insolvent law is 
very liberal to debtors, and no doubt that contributes, with 
the very speculative temper of our population, the facility for 
getting credit, and the unsteady course of our trade, to make 
our insolvent lists so large. 

§ 240. Interest of Money. — Again, in the matter of the in- 
terest of money, California occupies a peculiar position. The 
current rates are higher here than in any other Christian land. 
The common rate on long terms and the best security is one 
and a half per cent, per month, for interest is always calcu- 
lated by the month. On short loans, or with security in the 
least doubtful, the interest is from two to two and a half per 
cent, per month. The laws place no more restriction upon con- 
tracts for interest than for any other commercial contracts. 
The man who promises to pay interest must do so at his 
own risk ; for the law will not assist in any plans to violate 
his bargain. The high interest of money is owing in part to 
the unsettled character of the people, many of whom have no 
permanent abode, and wish to have their money so that they 
can get it at- any time. The fluctuations of the market present 
numerous speculations to merchants. The titles to real estate 
are, in many cases, questionable, and the capitalist may not 
like to buy, and will demand a high rate of interest if he must 
take a mortgage on a doubtful title. Capital always makes an 
extra charire for runninix a risk. It is a sreneral rule that in- 
terest will be high where wages are high. There are then 
many people who can afford to pay interest, and many people 
who will wish to obtain those comforts and luxuries only to 



336 EESOUIICES OF CALIFORNIA. 

be purchased by the investment of considerable sums of money. 
The wages of common laborers and mechanics are very high 
in California, and a large portion of the people are in hopes to 
attain wealth, and many of them make a practice of engaging 
in speculations, to do which they must borrow money. The 
high rate of wages, the unsettled habits of the people, the 
questionable character of land-titles generally, and the fluctu- 
ating nature of our commerce, all contribute to keep the rate 
of interest at a high figure. In San Francisco a peculiar 
custom prevails of loaning money from " steamer-dny" to 
"steamer-day." Steamer-day is the business-day which pre- 
cedes the sailing of the steamer for Panama, which steamer 
always carries away a shipment of about a million dollars. As 
the steamer starts early in the morning, all the business in 
arranging the shipments must be done on the previous day, 
and then importers must send their money to the Eastern 
houses from which they obtain their supplies, and they must 
then dun their customers, the jobbers ; and the jobbers nnist 
dun their customers, the retailers ; and the retailers must dun 
every body. So steamer-day is a great day for the payment of 
money, and as every body expects to get his money on steamer- 
day, so he borrows promising to pay then. There are men 
who make it a business to lend money from steamer-day to 
steamer-day, a period of ten or fourteen days, the rate for that 
period being from one to two per cent., almost invariably with 
" collateral security" of merchandise, which is on deposit in a 
warehouse, and is transferred by warehouse receipt to the 
money lender. Nearly every body borrows and lends money 
in California. It is no disgrace to lend money for high inter- 
est, nor is it ever considered bad management for a mer- 
chant to borrow and pay high rates ; that is, if the amount be 
small or the term brief But as a general rule, the merchants 
of California borrow altogether too much money. There are 
not less than fifty mercantile houses in San Francisco, that have 
paid more than ten thousand dollars each of interest on money 
borrowed during the last ten years, and of one house which 



COMMERCE. 337 

lately failed it was asserted that they had paid one hundred 
and eighty thousand dollars of interest. It is a general prac- 
tice among farmers to borrow money, and, if before harvest, 
give a mortgage on the crops ; if after harvest, store the grain 
in the lender's warehouse as security. One of the most profit- 
able branches of business in the state is " grain commission." 
The commission merchant has a quantity of ready money 
which he loans to the needy farmer, who stores his grain with 
the lender, and the latter charges about two per cent, a month 
for the money, a dollar a ton per month for storage, and two 
per cent, commission for selling. 

§ 241. Speculation m Land. — Speculation in land is one of 
the most important branches of business in the United States, 
and the increase in the value of land has been one of the main 
sources of the wealth of the country. The American farmer 
going into a new district, expects to purchase his land at a low 
price and see it gradually rise in value, until it makes him, if 
not wealthy, at least comfortable. Lands in Illinois which, 
twelve years ago, were to be obtained from the government 
at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, are now worth 
thirty and forty dollars per acre ; and a similar remark ^Y\\\ 
apply to most of the land in the Western states, though the 
average increase has not been so great. This increase has been 
one of the greatest inducements to the rapid settlement of the 
Mississippi Valley. Unfortunately, California has not been per- 
mitted to derive much benefit from this source of wealth. The 
fertile valleys near the coast had been granted away in large 
ranches by the Mexican government, and the American gov- 
ernment refuses to sell the land in the mineral districts. 

It appears to me a matter of the utmost importance to the 
welfare of California, that the land in the mineral districts 
should be sold. Not more than one acre in forty within 
the limits of the mineral region is now occupied for mining 
purposes, and not more than one acre in ten will ever be 
worked. 

§ 242. N'o Paper Money. — There is no paper money in Call- 



338 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

fornia. The Constitution of tbe state prohibits "banking," 
and "the creation of paper to circulate as money." No bank- 
notes have ever been current in this state or on this coast ; nor 
are bank-notes used on any part of the coast betAveen Aca- 
pulco and Sitka, and we are so far from the countries in which 
paper money is current, that no attempt is made to introduce 
it here. In our banks tliere are great f)iles of double eagles, 
but no bank-notes are visible. Wlicrever you go, or whatever 
you buy, you see only gold and silver ; people do not think of 
paper. All large sums are paid in double eagles, and three- 
fourths, if not nine-tenthsj of our coin is of that size, which is far 
more convenient than the smaller coins common in other coun- 
tries. A large proportion of our shipment of treasure abroad 
is in double eagles, and nine-tenths of the gold coined at the San 
Francisco Mint is in pieces of that size. In 1860, $11, 178,000 
of gold were coined, and $10,899,000 were in double eagles. 
The general character of our coin is large. No copper money 
is current, nor can any thing be bought with a cent. The 
smallest coin commonly used is a dime ; half-dimes are rarely 
seen, and when used two of them are ordinarily put together 
to make a dime. The general sentiment among the people is 
opposed to the use of any coin less than a ten-cent piece ; they 
like high wages and high prices, and think that the introduc- 
tion of half-dimes and cents Avould have a tendency to make 
us feel poor and to introduce low wages. Many retail dealers, 
even in the sale of candies and fruits, will therefore not take 
a half-dime, and not a few persons would be ashamed to oifer 
to purchase half a dime's worth of any thing. A half-dime is 
looked upon with more contempt and is far more rare in Cali- 
fornia than a cent in New York. During the last three months, 
for instance, though I purchase little articles every day, I have 
not seen a half-dime. That coin is not made in our mint, nor 
is there any demand for it. Tliree-cent pieces, coppers, and 
nickels are never seen here except as curiosities, and are of no 
value to make purchases. 

§ 243. OjJ^^ortimities for Investmc9it. — The opportunities 



COMMEKCE. 339 

for investing money securely in California are few compared 
with other countries, and the chief causes of the difference are 
to be found in the defects of our land-titles, and the unsteadi- 
ness of business. There is no place "where capital needs the 
constant attention of a prudent manager more than in this 
state. There are so many revolutions in business, that a brief 
neglect may cause the loss of a fortune. It is a very unsafe 
country for money left in the charge of agents. Their com- 
mission is high, and they will usually give much less atten- 
tion to a bailor's property than to their own. The interest of 
money is too high for investment in state stocks. The bonds 
of the state of California are all sold in New York, and the 
interest is made payable there, and nearly all are held there or 
in Europe. Most of these bonds bear only seven per cent, in- 
terest annually, not half the current rates here. So of the 
bonds of our towns and counties, for nearly every town and 
county has its debt, the bonds are mostly held abroad, and the 
interest is too low for the demands of capital in California. 
There are then no state stocks that can be owned here, and 
thus we are cut off from one of the best and most extensive 
fields of investment. Labor is so high that we have few fac- 
tories. The titles of farming-land are as a general thing inse- 
cure. Farming, as a business conducted on a large scale, is 
extremely uncertain. Our j^opulation is so small that the 
market is easily overstocked, and freight to Europe and the 
Atlantic states is so expensive, that a surplus can only be sent 
away with difficulty ; and we are so remote that any shipment 
is accompanied by many risks, for between the time when the 
vessel sails from San Francisco and the time when she arrives 
at Liverpool, there is an interval of three or four months, dur- 
ing which period a ruinous depreciation may occur. The flue 
tuations which occur in the grain market, have their })aralk'ls 
in all other kinds of agricultui-al products : cattle, sheep, and 
Avine. There is no title to mineral land save occupation ; and 
mining on a large scale is more dangerous than farming. 
Whenever any branch of business becomes so established ub 



340 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

to be periuanent and to yield a certain profit, capitalists abroad 
will wish to take possession of it, and they can alFord to pay 
more for it than we can, because our money is dearer than 
theirs. A man in Xew York can afford to pay more for stocks 
than we can in San Francisco. He gets his money for six per 
cent, per annum while we pay eighteen. Whenever therefore 
any large railroad or any extensive improvement, that will 
certainly be permanently profitable, is established in California, 
foreign capitalists will buy it up. We cannot compete with 
them until our money becomes cheaper. Our ocean steam- 
ships are owned in Xew York. Our river steamboats are 
mostly owned by a large association, called the California 
Steam Navigation Company, but the stock is very fluctuating 
and dangerous as an investment. There is no purchasable 
bank-stock in California. Most of the capitalists of San Fran- 
cisco either invest their money in houses and lots, or let it out 
at interest under bond and mortgage. The taxes are very 
high in California, in no county less than one per cent, a year, 
and in some places four per cent. Indeed, when streets are 
repaired in the large towns, the taxes sometimes amount to 
ten per cent, on the value of the property. There is a consid- 
erable amount of French and Swiss capital invested in San 
Francisco, most of it loaned on mortfrasre, and under the charcre 
of French and Swiss bankers. 

In no part of the United States is there so small an invest- 
ment of capital, and so small an amoimt of real and personal 
property held in fee simple, by individuals and local corpora- 
tions, in proportion to the area, population and amount of busi- 
ness done, as in the gold mining districts of California. The 
custom-house manifests show, that during the last fourteen 
years, we have exported $550,000,000 of gold, and no person 
at all famihar with the business and history of the state, will 
estimate the amount of exportation, not manifested, at less 
than $150,000,000 ; and yet what is there to show in the min- 
ing districts for all that immense wealth ? There are many 
fine mountain roads, and yet they are few, and bad, as com- 



COMMERCE. 3-il 

pared with the number that there should be; and even those 
which we liave, are mostly private property, and are made the 
means of levying severe taxes upon all travellers and merchan- 
dise passing over them. The counties have no fine roads, no 
large or durable bridges. There are great ditches — with a 
total length of six thousand miles — and wonderful flumes, but 
they are made as cheaply as possible for use, during ^a few 
years — not more than five or ten — and in too many cases, 
cheapness has not been found to agree with durability. Im- 
mense labors of many kinds have been undertaken, but simply 
with a view to present profit, and without conferring any per- 
manent benefit, or beautifying the country. There is scarcely 
an elegant county building in the state. The mining towns 
contain many fire-proof brick buildings and elegant residences, 
and yet any mining town set down in New York or Ohio, 
would be considered a very shabby village. Wherever we 
turn, in the mining districts, we see no investment of capital 
at all commensurate to the wants of the state. 

The whole policy of the federal and state governments, in 
regard to the mineral districts of California, has been not to 
enrich the state, but to benefit individuals who did not and do 
not intend to be permanent residents, whose interests are ad- 
Aerse to those of the state, and to whom no inducements are 
ofifered to become permanent residents. Rather the induce- 
ments are on the other side, and obstructions are thrown in 
the way of establishing homes. The improvements which 
should have been made in previous years are wanted, but the 
capital is not so abundant now. The main body of wealth 
has been transferred to the agricultural counties and commer- 
cial towns. The "mining districts, mstead of growing richer, 
from their immense treasures, are growing poorer every year, 
all of them comparatively — many of them absolutely. 

Miners come to capitalists residing out of the mineral dis- 
tricts, and invite them to invest money in gold-mining enter- 
prises. The investments would furnish employment to labor- 
ers, increase the production of gold, and benefit the state in 



342 EESOUECES OP CALIFORNIA. 

many ways, but the capitalists refuse because of alleged inse- 
curity. Tlie miners must abandon their schemes, and leave 
the wealth of the mines undeveloped, or obtain money in their 
own neighborhood, at rates of interest two or three times 
higher than those prevalent in larger cities, where undoubted 
security is given. Hence, serious obstacles to the develop- 
ment of all branches of industry, and to the establishment of 
that well-ordered society, made up of permanent residents, 
dwelling in homesteads fixed for lifcj-^vith a proper proportion 
of women and children. The least of all the evils is, that the 
mining counties contribute far less than they should to the 
treasury of the state. 

The main object of a government should always be to build 
up a permanent, dense, intelhgent, industrious and moral pop- 
ulation, skilled in the mechanic arts, and so employed that 
their capital increases rapidly and regularly. Such is the con- 
dition of all the most prosj^erous countries, and such would 
have been the condition of California now, if she had been 
properly governed. 

If application be made to a San Francisco capitalist to buy 
a gold mine, or loan money on the security of a gold mine, or 
invest money in any gold mining operation, an offer of sale 
will be received with the same refusal. A promise of ten per 
cent, a month will not induce him to examine the proposition. 
He will reply, that all gold mining is insecure. He treats 
quartz-mining, ditching, hydraulic claims and sluice, alike ; 
different as they are from one another, he makes no distinction 
between them ; they are alike, and equally dangerous. If he 
be asked how he knows that they are insecure, he will say 
that he lost an investment some years ago, or, that this and 
that friend of his lost investments in gold mines, and every- 
body says they are insecure, and that is enough for Lim. He 
cannot afford to travel through the mines and investigate the 
matter. He can find what he considers safe investments in 
San Francisco, in agricultural lands, from Sonoma to San 
Diego, and in Washoe silver mines. There is now more San 



I 



COMMEKCB. 343 

Francisco capital invested in Santa Clara county alone tban in 
all the gold mines of the state. There is scarcely a county 
near the coast, between latitude 40° and 33°, in which there is 
not a large amount of capital invested by non-residents, to 
the evident benefit of the county. Although gold mining has 
been the chief industry of the state for fourteen years, and 
although Washoe is of late discovery, and has less population 
than single counties of California, yet more San Francisco 
capital is invested in Washoe silver leads than in all the gold 
mines of the state. 

There is a great difference of opinion among business men in 
regard to the causes of this alleged insecurity. One will say 
that the cause is in the want of fee-simple titles ; that the 
ownership of mining claims depends upon possession, and is a 
kind of personal property with a still weaker title, for a man 
may lay his purse down, or let his horse go, and both will 
belong to him in law for years ; but when he shoulders his 
pick and blankets, and leaves his claim for three days in the 
Avorking season, he has not the least interest in it. Another 
consideration, how^ever, will show that this cause alone, al- 
though it may contribute much to the general result, is not 
sufiicient in itself to render gold-mining investments insecure, 
even in any one case of note. Most of the valuable mines in 
the world are held by mere possession, and abandonment or 
cessation of work w^ould lead to a forfeiture of title. This 
is the rule throughout the rich mineral districts of Spanish 
America, in most of the countries of Europe, and even in 
Washoe; and yet the value of these mines, whose title depends 
only on undisputed possession, is almost as good as if held in 
fee simple, for it is plain that so long as the mine is profitable 
there will be no cessation of work. 

Another theory to explain the aversion entertained by capi- 
tal for gold-mining enterprises is, that the business is too un- 
certain as to its profits ; that prudent business men avoid great 
risks, and will not venture their principal ; and that they cannot - 
invest in gold mines without the greatest perils, because it is 



344 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

impossible for them to know beforehand whether a mine con- 
tains much rich ore or dirt. But if we look a little further at 
this explanation, we sliall find that it has no good foundation. 
It is not true that the prudent business man always avoids great 
risks ; in other words, prudent business men often make in- 
vestments wdth a probability that the entire investment will 
be lost, but in clear view" of a possibility that an immense 
profit may be made. 

It is a mark of sound judgment and prudence in a business 
man to avoid risks that may much endanger the loss of his 
whole fortune, but he will not necessarily refuse to venture a 
tenth part of his fortune, if he see a possibility — as of one 
chance in five — of making a profit of a hundred-fold. It is 
under the guidance of principles like these — stating the risk 
in its least favorable aspect — that mining for gold and silver 
is conducted throughout the world, to the great general profit 
of those engaged in the business, and it is in view of princi- 
ples like these that mines of all kinds have a certain market 
value. They may be hidden hundreds of feet under the earth, 
but there is a probability that a metalliferous vein, if tolerably 
rich, and similar to other veins not far distant, and found to 
be rich through a considerable extent, will also be rich in like 
manner in other parts out of reach. There is such a chance 
for profit that a high value attaches to mines where there is 
not even a regular vein or layer of mineral to guide the miner. 
For instance, cinnabar is not found in veins, but in masses, 
usually connected with' each other by little seams. At New 
Almaden, sometimes a mass of ore is found ten feet cubic, and 
Avhen it is worked out, only a little seam indicates where other 
masses may lie. Whether they do lie there is a matter no 
way certain. The Enriqueta mine, which promised about two 
years since to rival the Almaden, has fallen to the level of the 
Guadalupe. Some rich masses were found ; and more may be 
found, but nobody knows whether they will be, and so with 
the ISI ew Almaden ; and though these facts are perfectly 
understood, the latter mine is worth millions in the market. 



COMMERCE. 345 

There is sucli a j^resumption of the richness of its unexplored 
portions, that a man worth one hundred tliousand dollars can 
be justified in venturing an investment of fifty thousand dol- 
lars of it in New Almaden stock at the market price. Any 
piece of property having a steady market price, promises se- 
curity to justify the investment of money. This theory, there- 
fore, is not satisfactory; it explains nothing. 

A third theory adduced in explanation is the natural dis- 
honesty of men, and the peculiar facilities with which dishon- 
esty may be practised in gold mining. It is said that if a 
mine is found to be valuable, the resident shareholders keep 
the knowledge to themselves, levy heavy assessments upon 
remote partners or stockholders, and take care that no divi- 
dends shall be declared, by which policy all who do not know 
the mine are at last driven to sell, and usually at a sacrifice. 
The managers of the mine are, of course, either directly or 
indirectly the purchasers. This system of management is 
neither imaginary nor rare; it is familiarly known as "freez- 
ing out," and is not confined to gold mining, but extends to 
silver mines, and commercial corporations. In mining for gold, 
however, there are greater opportunities and more speedy re- 
wards for this kind of fraud than in any other kind of busi- 
ness ; but whether the frauds are more numerous or greater 
may well be doubted. Theft is another form in which dis- 
honesty is dangerous to the owners of valuable mines. In all 
those mining enterprises where considerable amounts of capi- 
tal are invested, numerous laborers must be hired ; and in 
California most of these men are strangers to their employers, 
without family, permanent home, or any tie that can give se- 
curity for their good conduct. The great value of gold as 
compared with the space it occupies, gives the thief fine op- 
portunities for seizing and hiding it. Neither placer nor quartz 
mines are exempt from this danger. The laborer employed 
in deep hydraulic claims, or far from the daylight in shafts or 
drifts, cannot fail to see the large lumps or the rich portions 
of the auriferous rock. He has abundant means of hiding 
16 



346 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

enough every day to equal his wages, and as no one else saw 
the piece previous to the time when he took it, it is almost 
impossible to prove theft, even if found upon him. But it is 
not customary to search laborers when they rea\'e their work, 
for the honest men would probably not submit to the Jiumilia- 
tion. Ill quartz mines the term " knocking down" is given to 
the system of theft of rich bits of the rocks by the laborers, 
and it is said that some mines where the rock is very rich, are" 
plundered so extensively that they are far less profitable than 
those wherein the metal is equally diffused through a wide 
vein, so that the workmen can find no small pieces worth 
stealing. To what extent the influence of such dishonesty — 
the existence of which, as I have said, is recognized in the 
popular speech — may go, we have no information or estimate ; 
but I am satisfied that though they may be serious, they are 
in themselves far from sufficient to account for the utter dis- 
trust with which capitalists look upon enterprises for the de- 
veloping of our auriferous wealth. 

I have thus mentioned three theories which, in my view, 
whether considered each separately or all jointly, are unsatis- 
factory and insufficient to acc6unt for the evil. If there be 
any other theory I have not heard of it, or it does not, occur 
to me now. J have already spoken of the greatness of the 
evil ; it strikes at the very basis of our prosperity as a state, 
destroys the field of labor, drives our capital away, renders 
trade unsteady, and contributes to deter immigration and to 
make our mining population a set of wanderers. 

There is something radically wrong in the financial and in- 
dustrial condition of that country where the capital is not 
invested in the main branch of industry. So it is in Cali- 
fornia. Many important improvements are needed in the 
mineral regions, but the money cannot be obtained to make 
them. We send away $40,000,000 annually, because people 
abroad are not satisfied with the security which we offer, 
though we would, and could with advantage, pay three times 
as much interest as it can earn in the Atlantic states or Europe. 



COMMERCE. 347 

Great nnmbcrs of poor men seek employment, but the cnpital 
is not here to pay them. The invested capital does not bear a 
proper proportion to the population and labor. The lack of 
regular employment makes business unsteady, population un- 
settled, exposes the state to desertion at every cry of rich dig- 
gings at Cariboo or Salmon River, and prevents immigration, 
which we should by this time understand, is one of the great- 
est sources of wealth and prosperity. It is, or at least, previ- 
ous to the great rebellion, was a common assertion, that Cali- 
fornia was no place for a poor man ; that it was far inferior to 
the younger states east of the Rocky Mountains, in the proba- 
bilities of steady employment, and the opportunities of grad- 
ually acquiring a capital of five or ten thousand dollars, such 
as a large proportion of those who were poor men in the states 
in the Mississippi Basin, a score of years ago, have in that in- 
terval collected together. 

Is this complaint about the insecurity of the gold mines, as 
a sphere for the investment of capital, true ? If so, why and 
how ? Is it equally true about the quartz-mining, the placer- 
mining and ditching ? Certainly it cannot be true in the 
same manner, for the three branches of industry are very dif- 
ferent from one another. If it be true, is there a remedy ? 
These are questions which private enterprise has not solved, 
and for the solution of which a good government should make 
some provision. If we can but show how capital can be invested 
securely here, it will be invested, and population, industry, 
and the prosperity of residents and the state will swiftly follow. 

§ 244. Assurance. — The assurance of property against fire 
on land and against wreck at sea, has come to be an extensive 
branch of modern business. It is one of the chief channels 
through which capital runs to the great centres of trade. It 
is a legitimate, safe, and profitable investment. It is managed 
on careful principles. All its operations are based on statistics, 
collected in the course of many years. The premiums are 
always set at such a figure that according to the ordinary 
course of human events, the company must realize a profit iu 



348 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

the long run. The occasional losses are more than covered by 
the regular collection of the premiums. The amount of the 
premium is determined by the risk, and the risk is known from 
long observation to within a very small percentage. 

We have only two small assurance companies in California, 
and nearly all our assurance business is done by companies of 
the Eastern states and Europe, represented by agents here. 
These agents do a very large and profitable business, a busi- 
ness w^hich ought to be done by companies organized in our 
own state. Not less than $600,000 are annually sent from 
this state for assurance premiums, and the total losses do not 
exceed $200,000, leaving a clear profit of $400,000, or sixty- 
six per cent, to the assurers. These figures are not extrava- 
gant estimates, made without a knowledge of the subject ; if 
there be any error, they represent the profits less than they 
really are, Nearly all the policies, for w^nch these $600,000 
of premium are obtained, are issued on property in San Fran- 
cisco, and the losses by fire in 1860 were $162,000, an unusually 
large amount, the average during the previous five years hav- 
ing been $105,000, or thereabouts. 

The average j^remium paid is about one and one-half per 
cent., the lowest being three-quarters of one per cent., and thts 
highest three, or even four per cent., whereas one-quarter ol 
one per cent, on an average would pay the losses. 



CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 849 



CHAPTER XI. 

CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 

§ 245. Outlines of Constitution. — California is a state, and 
a member of the United States of America, witli rights equal 
to those of the other states. The sovereignty of government 
is divided between the federation and the state, the former 
taking precedence. Every officer of the state, before entering 
upon the duties of his position, must take an oath to " support 
the constitution of the United States, and the constitution of 
the state of California." A double allegiance is thus imposed, 
that due to the state authorities being secondary to that due 
to the authorities of the nation at large. The Union has ex- 
clusive power to regulate commerce, naturalize foreigners, 
coin money, make treaties, declare war, make peace, and main- 
tain an army and navy. Beyond these powers, the state is 
sovereign. The state government is republican. All the offi- 
cers of the government are chosen by the people. The legis- 
lature is composed of two houses, which sit separately, and 
the consent of both is necessary to the passage of any bill. 
The longest term of office for any important executive or 
legislative position is two years ; the members of the assembly 
and many of the county officers being elected annually. The 
voters thus have an immediate control over the government. 
The judges of the Supreme Court and of the District Courts 
are elected by the people, and the term of office is six years. 
Suffrage is universal; that is, every sane, adult, Avhite male 
citizen, not a felon, may vote at every election. No owner- 
ship of property or payment of taxes is required as a qualifi- 
cation for voting or holding office. 



350 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 246. Inferiority of Colored Persons. — All white male 
citizens are equal before the law of California ; but negroes, 
Indians, and Chinamen are not permitted to A^ote or to testify- 
in the courts against white men. In a criminal case, one- 
eiechth nearro blood and one-half of Indian blood, in civil cases 
one-half of either, disqualifies a witness for testifying against a 
white man. Slavery is forbidden by the constitution. 

§ 247. Laics Favorable to Debtors. — The laws of California 
relating to the collection of debts are very favorable to the 
debtor. His homestead, the property owned by his wife pre- 
vious to marriage, that given to her afterward, his household 
furniture to the value of two hundred dollars, his tools, if a 
mechanic, his horse and wagon, if a mechanic, and his library, 
if a lawyer, are exempt from execution. A married man, a 
widow, or widower with children, or any head of a family, is 
entitled to a homestead worth five thousand dollars, secure 
against creditors. An unmarried person may have a home- 
stead worth one thousand dollars. Such laws may prevent 
much oppression of poor people, but they also protect and en- 
courage much rascality. A man may own a homestead worth 
five thousand dollars, and that may include a very elegant 
dwelling. His household furniture, worth as much more, may 
have been presented by some friend to his wife after marriage. 
She may have a separate estate of one hundred thousand 
dollars, and may derive an annual income of ten or twenty 
thousand dollars from it, and both may live in an extravagant 
style, and yet creditors have no hold upon him whatever. 
There is no imprisonment for debt except in cases of fraud, and 
that the laws are so drawn that it is almost impossible to prove. 
One important class of testimony, admissible to prove a man a 
thief or murderer, is not admissible if he be accused of fraud 
in contracting a debt. In trials for obtaining money by fiilse 
pretenses — the most common kind of fraud in contracting 
debts — the oral testimony of witnesses, as to the representa- 
tions made by the accused, is not sufiicient to convict ; there 
must be some writing or token furnished by the defendant 



COXSTITUTIOX AND LAWS. 351 

In many ways the debtor is fenced about, so that the laws seem 
to have been devised by men who had had experience in swind- 
ling creditors, and wished to secure tliemselves against trouble 
in the future. Every i^recaution is taken against the creditor, 
as tkough he were a public enemy ; while the men who do 
not pay their debts are treated as thougli they were the soul 
of the state, and as though their mode of doing business should 
be encouraged at all costs. When a man gets in debt, he can 
get out again without difficulty. Our insolvent law provides 
that he has only to petition a court for release, set forth his 
debts and assets, swear that he cannot pay his debts and give 
up his assets. Unless the creditors can then prove that he 
has committed fraud, either in contracting the debts or in con- 
cealing his property from his creditors, he is entitled to be 
released. He may go through this process repeatedly ; and 
many cases have occurred of two discharges in insolvency 
granted to one person within Uvo years. The favor shown by 
our laws to debtors, is, I think, a grave error, and contributes 
much to establish a dishonest tone in general society, and to 
encourage dishonest actions. On every side can be seen men 
who have swindled creditors out of large amounts of money, 
and are themselves now living in extravagant, or at least 
luxurious style. Such laws encourage habits of rash specula- 
tion, with the expectation that riches will come wath success, 
and no discredit or loss to any one save creditors, with failure. 
Honest and prudent men suifer, business is throwai into disor- 
der, and reckless adventurers and knaves get positions and in- 
fluence which they never should have. 

The property owned by either the husband or ^vife before 
marriage, and by gift, bequest, or inheritance after marriage, 
belongs to each separately ; and the property acquired after 
marriage, by oth-er means than gift, bequest, or inheritance, is 
common property belonging in equal shares to both. The 
husband, however, has sole control of it. The wife has no 
right of dov/'cr, and the husband has sole control of the com- 
mon property, and may sell, without the consent of the wife, 



352 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

any of it except the homestead ; a deed or mortgage for which 
without her signature and seal, is absolutely void. The hus- 
band cannot convey his interest unless she conveys her in- 
terest at the same time. The husband has the management 
of the separate proj)erty of the wife too, but, if she desire it, 
she may apply to a court and have the property placed in the 
charge of any trustee whom she may select. For a valid sale 
of the wife's separate property, husband and wife must join. 

The laws of California, like the customs and trade, do not 
favor the jDcrj^etuation of wealth in families. There is no right 
of primogeniture. All children inherit equally. The eldest 
son gets no more than the youngest. Public opinion runs 
with the law. The rich man who should express an intention 
to give all his property to his eldest son, merely because of 
his seniority, would be hated. Entails are forbidden. A man 
cannot tie up lands in the country for more than ten years, or 
town lots for more than tvrenty. How different is all this 
from the state of afiairs in Europe ! There, at least in some 
parts of the continent, all the property goes to the eldest son ; 
property is entailed in the family for many generations ; the 
debtor is subject to imprisonment ; there is no release for in- 
solvents ; the property of the woman is by marriage vested 
absolutely in the husband, and does not revert by inheritance 
to her blood relatives by her death ; the limitations for com- 
mencing law-suits are very long, and sales, if not made at the 
market price, or contracts, if made so that one party appears 
to have obtained an advantage of the other, may be rescinded. 
The habits and opinions of the people give strength to their 
laws ; and wealth once in a family is almost as certain to be 
transmitted through many generations by inheritance in Eu- 
rope, as its loss in the second or third generation is certain in 
the new states of America. 

§ 248. Tenure of Land. — Four-fifths of the land in Califor- 
nia is owned by the federal government, which acquired it 
from Mexico by treaty. This federal land lies in the mineral 
regions, and in all the unsettled districts of the state. Most of 



CONSTITUTIOX AND LAWS. 353 

it has been surveyed, and, with the exception of the land in the 
mineral districts, is offered for sale at one dollar and twenty- 
five cents cash per acre, in lots of forty acres, or tracts of any 
size of which forty is a multiple. Tliere is no limit to the 
amount wdiich one man may buy. Any man may occupy any 
of the federal land. It is open to the use of the public. The. 
tule land, of which there are about eight hundred square 
miles, belongs to the state, and that is offered for sale at one 
dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, but the payment may be 
made in instalments at lono;: intervals. One-eisfhteenth of the 
land has been given to the state for school puiposes, and this 
is also for sale at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre 
in instalments. 

Most of the land held in private ownership in the state, is under 
grants made by Mexico pre^dous to 1846. Of these grants there 
are eight hundred and thirteen, covering a total of 9,828,181 
acres. Of these claims about one hundred and fifty, covering 
about 3,000,000 acres, have been finally rejected, and a number 
are as yet undecided. The grants were for large tracts called 
ranches, intended to be used chiefly or exclusively for pastur- 
age, and the average size was about 12,000 acres, or three 
square leagues. The grants were made, not by the acre or by 
the mile, but by the square league, containing 4,438 acres and 
a fraction, or, to be precise, 4,438.683 acres. Every ranch had 
its name, for it was a kind of principality, and these names 
have in many cases been transferred to towns and townships 
under the American dominion. 

The common tenure of land in California is fee-simple. Such 
conditional tenures as are common in Europe are very rare 
liere, and many of them are prohibited by our laws. We 
have no life estates, nor is any lease or limited conveyance of 
land good for a longer period than ten years, unless it be a 
town lot, and then the limit is twenty yeans. All conveyances 
of real estate are placed upon record in a government office, 
and without such record they are not valid as against persons 
not parties to the conveyance. 
16* 



354 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 249. Ownership of Minerals. — It has been a much dis- 
puted questioD whether the owner of land, under a Mexican 
title, owns the minerals in the soil. Under the Mexican law 
he did not; but the latest decision of the highest court of 
California is, that the owner of the land owns all the minerals 
in it. The Mexican and Spanish law is unsuited to the Ameri- 
can system. By law the mines are open to everybody. Any 
man or woman, citizen or alien, white, black, or yellow, may 
lay claim to an unoccupied tract of auriferous quartz or dirt, 
and if his claim be not larger than is customary, he has a good 
legal title so long as he may work it, provided that, if an alien, 
he shall pay a license of four dollars per month. However, 
although he may have a good legal title, the white miners in 
some districts will not permit Chinamen to come among them, 
and their legal right is of no value against the omnipotent 
mob. There is no express law throwing the mines open to all 
the world ; but the intent of the government is plainly to be 
inferred from the debates of Congress, and the fact that no re- 
straint has been placed upon mining. All the federal land in 
the state, save that in the mining districts, is thrown open to 
pre-emption for agricultural purposes ; but the mines are re- 
served, and evidently for the miners, from whom the federal 
government has never demanded any tax or share of the gold 
obtained. The state legislature has imposed a tax of four 
dollars per month on all alien miners, and has promised that 
all who pay that tax shall be permitted to mine as freely as 
citizens ; but that promise is not kept. 

§ 250. Titles of Mining {Jlai7ns. — The miners do not own 
the land on which they work; they only have a right of pos- 
session so long as they occupy it ; and their right is called a 
" claim." The size of the claims varies in difl'erent districts, 
and depends entirely upon the regulations or custom of the 
district. Every district has a written code of regulations, 
determining, among other points, the size of mining claims ; 
and these regulations are recognized by the state as valid, so 
far as they are not in conflict with the statutes or constitution. 



CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 355 

Quartz claims are usually two hundred feet long, following the 
course of the lode. In some districts the miner holds one 
hundred feet of ground on each side of his lode, so that he can- 
not be disturbed by other persons in his vicinity ; in others he 
holds only the width of his lode, and if another lode, or placer 
diggings, be found within a few feet of his place of working, 
other claimants may come so near as to interfere greatly with 
his convenience. Placer claims vary in size, according to the 
nature of the ground. On bars, a claim usually has a front of 
fifty, a hundred, or two hundred feet on the river, and runs 
back across the whole width of the bar. Tunnel claims have 
a front of fifty, a hundred, or two hundred feet on a hill-side, 
and run transversely to the middle of the hill, or entirely 
across it, parallel with the direction in Avhich the tunnel is 
commenced. Ivavine claims include the bed of a ravine for a 
distance of not more than three hundred feet. Placer claims 
not on bars or ravines, or in hills that must be tunnelled, are 
usually rectangular, containing as much as one hundred or t^vo 
hundred feet square. Persons who discover new placers or 
auriferous quartz veins are entitled to two claims. 

The method of getting a claim is very simple. The miner 
finds a piece of unoccupied ground that suits him ; drives stakes 
at the corners ; fastens on one of these stakes a piece of paper, 
containing a written notice similar to the following : 

"I hereby lay claim, for mining purposes, to a piece of 
ground a hundred feet square, of which this is the northeast- 
ern corner, the other corners being marked by stakes. 

"John Smith." 

He then goes to the mining recorder of the district, requests 
him to record the claim in his book, and pays a fee of half a 
dollar. In some districts the recorder must go out and look 
at the claim, to see that it is not on ground previously claimed. 
In other districts one of the stakes must have a piece of tin on 
it, marked with the number which the claim has on the record- 
er's books. In other districts it is necessary to mark the 



356 RE60UECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

limits of claims with a trench. But the common custom is to 
require only a notice of the simplest intelligible form and a 
record ; and by these the miner acquires a perfect title as 
against all other persons, so long as he continues to work the 
claim. But if he does not work the claim, he forfeits his title. 
The time within which work must be done to preserve the title 
good, varies greatly in different districts — from three days to 
a month. The period is usually brief in proportion to the shal- 
lowness of the diggings and the ease of working them. In 
most districts no amount of work will secure a claim a<2:ainst 
forfeiture. A miner may work his claim every day for years, 
and then, if he deserts it for a day beyond the period allowed 
in the mining regulations of the district, it is legally forfeited, 
and may be taken by the first comer. There are certain classes 
of diggings which can only be worked during half of the year, 
and in these, claims are subject to forfeiture only during the 
workable season. It is not expected that a miner will work 
a dry ravine claim in the summer, or a bar claim in the winter ; 
and the mining regulations, being based on reason, and well 
designed for the convenience of the miners and the develop- 
ment of the mining interest, impose no penalty upon such 
actions as would be approved by industrious, prudent men. 
There are deep diggings where all the claims cannot be worked 
at once : those in front, or nearest the place where there is an 
outlet for the water, must be worked out before the miner can 
begin on those behind. In such cases, the claims in the " back- 
ground" will not be forfeited until there is a possibility of 
working them, even though years elapse. The mining regula- 
tions impose no penalty for a neglect to do impossible things. 
Among the claims which may be left unworked for a long 
time w^ithout danger of forfeiture, are claims for mining pur- 
poses to land occupied by other parties for tailings. A miner 
may hold a tailing claim merely for the purpose of preserving his 
tailings, and with no intention to wash the natural dirt; and 
another miner may lay claim to the same place for mining pur- 
poses, but he must Wixit until the prior occupant has removed 



CONSTITUTION AND LAWS. 357 

his tailings, and until such removal the title is not subject to 
forfeiture. And the prior occupant is under no obligation to 
be m haste ; he can take the same time to remove the tailings 
that he would have taken if no claim for raining purposes had 
been made to the land. It is not necessary that the owner of 
a claim should work upon it in person ; the labor of a hired 
man is as good to maintain occupation and secure title as any- 
other labor. In the Esmeralda silver district, work to the 
value of seventy-five dollars secures the title forever, according 
to the mining regulations. 

A company of miners may take up as much ground as the 
aggregate amount which they could take up separately ; and 
when a company takes a claim, every member has an equal 
and undivided interest in every part of it. When a chiim is 
to be taken for a company, it is sufficient that one member of 
the company should appear at the recorder's office, demand 
that the claim be recorded, and offer to joay the fees. The re- 
corder has no right to make any preliminary inquiries as to 
who the people are, or where they live, or whether they live 
at all. One man, finding a good tract of rich ground, may 
write down the names of a dozen persons living at a distance, 
and, without consulting them, have their names recorded as 
members of a company owning a large and valuable claim, 
and by such record their title becomes good. 

In most districts a miner may hold only one claim by his 
own original location, but an unlimited number by purchase. 
In districts where there are both dry ravine and bar-claims, he 
may at the same time hold one bar-claim and one ravine clahn 
by original location, the former being workable in summer and 
the latter in the winter. After having exhausted or abandoned 
one claim, the miner may always take up another. 

The manner of taking up claims in the argentiferous and 
quicksilver districts, is the same as in the gold districts. 

The water in the mineral districts is also subject to claim. 
The streams may be diverted from their courses aijd used for 
washing dirt, driving saw-mills, grist-mills, and quartz-mills, or 



358 RESOURCES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

irrigating tilled fields. The first claimant has the prior right, 
no matter fi)r what industrial purpose he wishes to use the 
water. Miners have no monopoly of the water in the mineral 
regions, nor even a prior riglit. There is no hmit to the 
amount which a man may claim. He may take the largest 
river in the mountains ; he may take a dozen of them and 
hold them all. He may not only take all their water, but he 
may take all the land necessary to use it. He may make res- 
ervoirs covering: hundreds of acres. He may make ditches a 
hundred miles long. All that is necessary to give him a pos- 
sessory title to the water and land, is that he shoidd drive 
stakes along the route of the ditch, post up notices of his inten- 
tion, and commence work in building the dam and cutting the 
ditch. However, while the custom of the country would per- 
mit a man to become the owner of such extensive works, the 
practical result is, that the large ditches are almost invariably 
made by companies. 

§ 251. 2Iarriage. — Marriage, by the law of Cahfornia, is 
a civil contract, which is complete with the consent of the 
man over twenty-one years of asre, and of the woman over 
eighteen. Xo ceremonial form, license, publication of bans, 
consent of parents, blessing of priest, seal of magistrate, or 
presence of witness, is necessary to give validity to the con- 
tract. If either party be imder the age mentioned, then the 
consent of the parent or guardian is necessary. Although the 
law does not require a ceremony, yet custom does, and the 
priests and preachers are usually called in to perform it. 
Divorce may be granted for adultery, habitual intemperance, 
extreme cruelty, desertion for two years, conviction of a felony, 
and impotence. There has been much complaint that the law 
renders divorce too easy, but the general opinion of California 
is fiivorable to the law as it is. 



SOCIETY. 359 



CHAPTER XII. 

SOCIETY. 

§ 252. Population. — The total population of California is 
reported by the census of 1860 to be 380,015; of whom 
•333,530 are white, and 4G,485 are colored. This census, how- 
ever, was not taken with proper care, and I am confident that 
the total population is not less tlian 400,000, of whom about 
340,000 are white, and 60,000 colored. Of the colored, 50,000 
are Chinamen, 3,000 are negroes and mulattoes, and 7,000 are 
Indians. Most of the Indians live far from white men, and in 
a state of complete savageness ; the negroes are mostly in the 
large towns ; the Chinamen are mostly in the mines and in 
San Francisco. The details of the census have not yet been 
published, so I must guess at them. I suppose that the white 
population is made up of 155,000 men, 95,000 women, and 
90,000 children or minors. Of the men, there may be 130,000 
citizens and 25,000 aliens. The aliens may be composed of 
12,000 Frenchmen, 3,000 Englishmen and Scotchmen, 2,000 
Irishmen, 3,000 Italians, 2,000 Si)anish Americans and 3,000 
Germans, &c. Putting white and colored adults together, 
there are about 110,000 women and 200,000 men in the state. 
The men are about equally divided between the mining and 
farming districts of the state, but the proportion of women is 
much laro-er in the latter than in the former. The minors are 
about equally divided between boys and girls; and the chil- 
dren, under ten years of age, have a large majority over those 
between ten and twenty-one. Of the nativity of voters I 
make the following estimate : 50,000 Americans from the free 
states, 80,000 Americans from the slave states, 20,000 Irish- 



360 



RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



men, 15,000 Germans, and 15,000 miscellaneous, including 
Canadians, Britons, Hungarians, Spaniards, Danes, &c. The 
most populous counties, according to the census report, have 
the numbers of inhabitants, and, at the presidential election of 
1860, cast the number of A'otes, indicated in the following 
table : 



Cowniie^. Population. 

Snn Francisco 56,805 

Sacramento 24,145 

El Dorado 20,562 

Nevada 1 6.447 

Tuolumne 16,229 

Calaveras 16,302 

Yuba 13,671 

Placer 13,270 

Butte 12,107 



Totes. 
14,415 
7,542 
7,049 
6,965 
■5,547 
4,815' 
5,053 
5,«24 
4.438 



173,538 



61,653 



The following is a statement of the population of the state 
by counties, as rej^orted in the census of 1860 : — 



Cormties. 

Alameda 

Amador* .... 

Butte* 

Calaveras* . . 
Contra Costa. 

Colusa 

Del Norte .... 
El Dorado*. . , 
Fresno* . . . . , 
Humboldt. .^ . 
Klamath * . . . 
Los Angeles., 

Marin 

Mariposa* . . 
Meudociuo. . 

Merced 

Monterey . . . 

Napa 

Nevada* . . . 
Placer* .... 
Plumas* .... 
Sacramento . 
S. Bernardino. 



White. 


CoVd. 


Total. 


8,581 


346 


8,927 


8.392 


2,541 


10,933 


9.718 


2,389 


12,107 


12,579 


3,723 


16.302 


5,186 


142 


5,328 


2,157 


117 


2,274 


1,374 


618 


1,992 


14,695 


5,867 


20,562 


4,-025 


580 


4,605 


2,502 


192 


2,6941 


1,315 


588 


1,803 


9,919 


1,417 


11,336' 


3,042 


292 


3.334 


4,215 


2,028 


6,243 


2,881 


1,086 


3,967 


1,114 


27 


1,141 


4,147 


592 


4,739 


5.454 


61 


5,515 


14.236 


2,211 


16,447 


11.104 


2,1-66 


13,270 


3,730 


633 


4,363 


22,761 


1,384 


24,145 


4,860 


694 


5,554 

i 



Comities. 

San Diego. . . . 
San Francisco 
San Joaquin . . 
S. Luis Obispo. 
San Mateo . . . 
Santa Barbara 
Santa Clara. . . 
Santa Cruz. . . 

Shasta* 

Sierra* 

Siski3-ou*:. . . . 

Solane 

Sonoma 

Stanislaus.. . . 

Sutter 

Tehama 

Tulare and 
Buena Vista . . 

Trinity* 

Tuolumne*. . . 

Yolo 

Yuba. ... . . . 



Widte. 


CoTd. 


Total. 


3,785 


541 


4,32G 


52,955 


3,850 


56,805 


9,171 


263 


9,434 


1,560 


222 


1,782 


3,138 


76 


3,214 


3,100 


443 


3.543 


11,683 


229 


11,912 


4,327 


618 


4,945 


3,922 


438 


4,360 


9,574 


1,815 


11,389 


7.056 


573 


7,629 


7,132 


38 


7,170 


11.672 


195 


11,867 


' 2,022 


203 


2,245 


3,358 


42 


3,390 


3,288 


756 


4,044 


4,059 


579 


4,638 


3,318 


1,807 


5,125 


14.277 


1,952 


16,229 


4,679 


37 


4,716 


11,557 


2,114 


13,671 


333,530 


46,485 


360,015 



SOCIETY. 361 

In the counties marked with asterisks the population is chiefly 
occupied with mining ; and there is some mining in Sacra- 
mento, Yuba, Del Norte, Los Angeles, Buena Vista, and San 
Bernardino counties. Since the census was taken, the eastern 
part of Calaveras has been oi'ganized into Mono county, and 
the northern part of Napa into Lake county. 

§ 253. Nativities. — In January, 1848, thirteen years ago, 
the total white population of California did not exceed 15,000 
in number, of whom two-thirds w^ere Spanish American. Of 
the 340,000 present white inhabitants, therefore, 325,000 are 
immigrants or miners. Of the adult population not more than 
one in twenty is a native of the state. The migration has 
not been for a short distance. It was from one side of the 
world to the other — a long and for most an eventful journey. 
Of the children, about half were born in California. The aver- 
age time that the immigrants have spent in California may be 
six years. During the last twelve years not less than 250,000 
persons wiio had made their homes in California for a year or 
more, have left the state, and they are now scattered all over 
the civilized world. The Americans in California represent 
every state in the Union, and representatives from every state 
may be found in many of the counties taken separately. In 
the public schools of San Francisco during 1860, there w^ere 
1,454 children born in the state of New York, 1,176 born in 
California, 667 from Massachusetts, 245 from Louisiana, 194 
from Pennsylvania, 149 from Maine, 72 from Missouri, 70 from 
Ohio, 61 from Maryland, 49 from Illinois, 47 from New Jer- 
sey, 46 from Rhode Island, 44 from Connecticut, 41 from 
New Hampshire, 36 from Kentucky, and a few from Vermont, 
Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, 
Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, 
Michigan, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Oregon, the District of 
Columbia, New Mexico, and Utah. Of foreign coxmtries there 
were 214 from Germany, 150 from Australia, 121 from Eng- 
land, 77 from China, 54 from France, 51 from Ireland, 29 from 
Canada, 27 from Scotland, 25 from Chili, 16 from New Zea- 



362 EESOUECES OP C A L I F E ITI A . 

land, 13 born at sea, and others from Poland, Tahiti, ISTova 
Scotia, New Brunswick, Cuba, Spain, West Indies, Russia, 
Holland, Hawaiian Islands, Norway, Italy, Tasmania, Belgium, 
Panama, Sweden, Switzerland, and Peru. The children from 
Ireland, France, and Spanish America are few, because most 
of them are sent to the Catholic schools. Otherwise the table 
presents a pretty fair indication of the mixed character of the 
population, and the brief period of its residence in this state. 
The proportions are, however, not the same in all the counties. 
The proportion of people from the maritime states of New 
York and New England is larger in San Francisco than in any 
other county ; whereas Missouri is the leading state in Sonoma, 
Napa, Yolo and Santa Clara counties, which are agricultural. 
Texas has probably furnished more citizens to Tulare county 
than any other state of the Union ; and Illinois and Iowa have 
furnished a considerable j)roportion of the residents of Siskiyou 
and Shasta counties. 

§ 254. Liberal Tone of Society. — As a body, the people of 
California are intelligent. It is very rare to find a white man 
who cannot read. They have travelled far to reach this coast, 
and the journey required from most of them a considerable ex- 
penditure of money and an enterprising spirit. Many of them 
had seen much of the world before coming to California, and 
have travelled considerably since their arrival. They are in- 
dustrious, energetic, brave, quick in speaking, ready to avenge 
an insult, accustomed to carry pistols and knives, quick to use 
them in quarrel, affable, unceremonious, and unreserved in their 
intercourse with acquaintances or strangers. These remarks 
will not apply to all individuals, but to the people generally, 
as compared with the people of other states and countries. 
The state has not yet had time to build up a national cbarncter 
among natives, but the people are different from all other 
people. They have much of the general traits of Americanism, 
but the traits are more striking because so many of the popu- 
lation are men, and men in the most vigorous period of man- 
hood, and bold, adventurous men, who have seen strange ups 



SOCIETY. ~ 303 

and downs of life, and seen nmcli of foreifrn lands and stransre 
peoples. In their own state they meet and are thrown into 
familiar intercourse with intelligent representatives of all climes 
and continents. The consequence is, that there is no popula- 
tion more cosmopolitan than the Californians. They have no 
provincial stiffness ; there is nothing of the little village about 
them. 

In no place is society more free and cordial, and ready to 
give a friendly reception to a stranger than in California. The 
new-comer is looked upon with favor ; nobody cares whether 
he belongs to a distinguished family, has moved in a fashion- 
able circle, or possesses wealthy or influential friends or rela- 
tives. The great question is, "Is he or she well educated, 
polished, and entertaining ?" Of course Californians are not 
entirely above such considerations as govern society elsewhere, 
but they are influenced by them flxr less than people in other 
states. The course of business is such that no profession has 
all the wealth. There are rich men of all occupations, and 
some of the mechanical trades are now as profitable, on the 
average to those engaged in them, as are the learned profes- 
sions. Those who were rich in the older states, and received 
a thorough education and a polished training, may here be 
poor, while those who came hither poor and ignorant may now 
be rich. Besides, the changes are so rapid that our neighbor 
who is poor to-day may be rich to-morrow, and the neighbor 
Avho is rich to-day may be poor to-morrow. Again, California 
is pre-eminently a country of business. People came here to 
make money, and everybody tries to make it ; and in a state 
w^here wages are high, and profits large, a man's business de- 
pends to a considerable extent on the multitude of his friends, 
so everybody wishes to make a friend of everybody else. The 
millionaire in Europe may treat his tenant as an inferior ; in 
California the wealthiest land-owner is expected to treat his 
tenant as an equal. All these things have their influence in 
preventing the separation of our society into those classes 
which prevail elsewhere. 



364 EESOUECES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

In no part of the world is the individual more free from re- 
straint. Men, women, and children are permitted to do near- 
ly as they please. High wages, migratory habits, and bache- 
lor life, are not favorable to the maintenance of stiff social 
rules among men, and the tone of society among women must 
partake, to a considerable extent, of that among men, especi- 
ally in a country where the women are in a small minority, 
and therefore are much courted. Public opinion, which as a 
guardian of public morals is more powerful than the forms of 
law, loses much of its power in a community where the inhab- 
itants are not permanent residents. A large portion of the 
men in California hve alone, either in cabins or in hotels, re- 
mote from women relatives, and therefore iminfluenced by the 
powers of a " home." It is not uncommon for married women 
to go to parties and balls in company wdth young bachelor 
friends. The girls commence going into " society " about fif- 
teen, and then receive company alone, and go out alone with 
young men to dances and other places of amusement. In this 
there is a great error ; too much liberty is allowed to the girls 
in the states on the Atlantic slope, and still greater liberty is 
given here, where, as they ripen earlier, they should be more 
guarded. 

The absence of restraint in society, the exciting character of 
business, the mildness of the climate, the interesting associa- 
tions of life, in a state where a man lives more and sees more 
in a year than he would see in a lustrum in older countries, 
have given the people who have resided here an attachment 
for California. It has been observed that a large proportion 
of those who have left the state, intending to spend the remain- 
der of their lives in their native places, have returned, declar- 
ing that they could not accommodate themselves to the slow, 
quiet, dull ways of more antiquated states. 

§255. Publicity of Life. — Life in California is very pubhe. 
Many of the people live in hotels and at large boarding-houses. 
Travellers are numerous ; theatres and balls are abimdant and 
well attended; celebrations and festivals are frequent; the 



t 



SOCIETY. 365 

population is excitable; all take the newspapers, and all are 
interested in the events of the day ; and the history of the 
country is full of eventful incidents, which always present 
fruitful topics for discussion. Money is abundant, and is easily 
earned, and of course it is spent freely; and the favorite 
method of spending is in public festivities and attending places 
of amusement. In no part of the United States is so much of 
life public, and so little of it private. 

§ 256. Amusemeiits. — San Francisco is a city of public shows 
and processions. Dancing is almost universal. The children 
of every public school in our chief city must have picnics and 
dances in May and at Christmas. Some of the Sunday schools 
do without the dance ; others have as many as the common 
schools. One has four dances every year. The regular dances, 
picnics, and festivals of various schools and associations in San 
Francisco, wuU average several for every week in the year. 
Theatres and operas are most liberally patronized, in propor- 
tion to the population. But perhaps the amusement which has 
found the most favor in California is bilUard-playing. Billiard- 
tables are found everywhere. In many little villages where 
there is but one inn a fine billiard-table will be found. In San 
Francisco there are numerous large billiard-saloons, containing 
each from eight to twelve of the largest and most elegant bil- 
liard-tables, at which men are constantly playing. The climate 
along the coast is peculiarly favorable to dancing, for, as the 
evenings and nights are always cold, it is as pleasant to dance 
in the summer as in the winter. Among the other regular 
amusements of Californians is that of "going east." About 
ten thousand of them go to the Eastern states every year, to 
make visits and see their relatives. Among the fashionable 
places of resort in the state are the Yosemite Falls, the Mam- 
moth Groves of Calaveras and Mariposa counties, the Alabas- 
ter Cave in El Dorado county, the Geysers in Sonoma county, 
the Sulphur Springs in Napa county, the Warm Springs in 
Alameda county; and in September and October, when the 
grapes are ripe, the towns of Sonoma and Los Angeles. Gam- 



366 KESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

bling was in 1854 commonly and openly practised in all the 
towns of the state ; now it is prohibited as a crime, and is 
practised only in secret, and is a rare offence save in the 
mining towns. Horse-racing is common, and the state has 
some of the best thorongh-bred horses in the world. Gam- 
bling was from 1849 to 1854 a common public amusement in 
all the towns and mining camps. In San Fi-ancisco a dozen of 
the largest and finest halls on the first floor, with doors always 
open to the street, and in several cases extending across whole 
blocks and opening upon two opposite streets, were occupied 
by gamblers, and were filled by crowds of people every day — 
no exception for Sunday — from dark until long after midnight. 
Fine bands of music and voluptuous pictures were among the 
common attractions of these places, and some of the tables had 
handsome women to deal the cards or gather in the money. 
Gambling is now prohibited by law, but is practised oj^enly in 
the little mining towns. 

Some years ago bull-fights and fights of bears against bulls 
were not uncommon, but they have gone out of favor, and 
nothing is heard of such exhibitions now. 

§ 257. Licxurious Living. — The mode of living among Call- 
fornians is luxurious. They all try to make the most of life. 
Everybody wants a neat house, elegant tableware, fine ma- 
hogany furniture, Brussels carpets, and a good table. In the 
towns especially, the people live well, even the poorer me- 
chanics and common laborers. Every man dresses in broad- 
cloth, and nearly every woman in silk. The exceptions are so 
few as scarcely to be worthy of notice. Gold watches are 
worn by draymen and washerwomen. In every occupation 
men get rich, and stingy men and misers are rare. 

§ 258. Health. — Of the Americans in California, it may be 
remarked that they generally have the same marks as the 
Americans in the Eastern states. Their eyes are deep set, 
their foreheads high, their features regular and finely cut, their 
faces expressive and free from grimace, their lips thin, their 
mouths grim, their bodies tall, slim, and slightly bent in the 



II 



SOCIETY. .?67 

shoulders, thin in the chest, the voice loud, the enunciation 
slow and clear, with little modulation. Tlicse general charac- 
teristics of the nation, as compared with Europeans, are not 
wantinjT in California. However, the Californians of the third 
or fourth generation will be different from those of the present 
day ; they will be a heavier, and healthier, and probably a taller 
race. The tendencies in this direction are, I think, already 
evident, in the forms and growth of the children ; and such 
influences might be inferred from the vigorous development, 
in this state, of the forms of animal and vegetable life generally. 
Most parts of the state, especially those near the coast, are 
very healthy. Indeed I do not think that in any part of the 
world is nature more favorable to long life than in California 
from Sonoma to Santa Barbara, within thirty miles of the ocean. 
The regularity of the temperature, and the entire absence of 
both extreme heat and extreme cold, with a clear sky, a dry 
atmosphere, and a constant breeze, are the conditions most 
favorable to health, and they are nowhere more happily united 
than here. In the low land of the Sacramento and Colorado 
basins, where the summers are very hot, and in the high land 
of the Sierra Nevada, where the winters are very cold, the 
health of the inhabitants is not so good. In many of the 
mining towns, where much w^ater escapes from the ditches, 
and keeps the earth constantly moist, and where new ground 
is thrown up every day, fever and ague are common. That 
disease prevails also in the moist lands along the Sacramento 
and San Joaquin Rivers, and about the Four Creeks, in Tulare 
county. Rheumatism is very common in the mines, and neu- 
ralgia throughout the state. Whether this latter disease is 
more common here than in the Eastern states, is a matter of 
dispute, but certainly I never heard so much of it elsewhere as 
I have heard in California. Diseases of the eyes are common 
here, caused probably by the dust, the dryness of the atmos- 
phere, the glare of the sun, and the evaporation of mercury 
in open pans, by miners. The dense fogs which visit the coast 
render the climate unfavorable to persons afflicted with con- 



368 KESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

sumption ; while I presume a residence in the mountains, high 
above the sea, would be very likely to cure that disease, at 
least in its early stages. 

The American women of California are not healthy, as a 
class. They are trained up in the dark and in idleness, as 
though sunshine and work would ruin them. Pastry, pickles, 
and sweetmeats form a considerable portion of their food, 
and they are taught to abhor coarse strength and robustness 
as worse than sins. Of course they cannot, as women, be 
healthy. The girls are beautiful — beautiful as angels, but at 
twenty-five the women begin to wither, and at thirty-five they 
lose nearly every trace of physical beauty. The diseases pe- 
culiar to women are very common, and whether from this 
reason or some other cause, it is very frequent to see women 
of thirty or thirty-five, who have one or two children ten or 
twelve years old, and none younger. The native Californian 
and Irish women have large families ; the American women 
have but few, and yet there is no country where children are, 
on an average, so large at birth (if the opinion of some experi- 
enced physicians of my acquaintance be sufficient authority to 
establish the fact), or where so many twins are born. It has 
been remarked that a multitude of instances have occurred of 
couples who, after having lived childless for ten, fifteen, or 
twenty years in other countries, before coming to California, 
in a year after their arrival here have had children. Travel- 
ling and a change of climate will no doubt always have a favor- 
able influence in this respect, but perhaps the extraordinary 
productiveness of California may be perceptible here too. 

§ 259. Proportion of the Sexes. — There are not enough 
women for the men in California. The relation between the 
sexes is unsound. Unfortunate women are numerous, and 
separations and divorces between married couples frequent. 
No civilized country can equal us in the proportionate number 
of divorces. Our laws are not so lax as those of several of 
the states east of the Mississippi, but the circumstances of life 
are more favorable to separation. The small proportion of 



I 



SOCIETY. 369 

women makes a demand for the sex, and so when a woman is 
oppressed by her husband, she can generally find somebody 
else who will not oppress her, and she will apply for a divorce; 
whereas, in another state she would submit to much harsher 
treatment and not demand a separation. The abundance of 
money is here felt also. To prosecute a divorce suit costs 
money, and many cannot pay the expense in poorer countries. 
During 18C0 eighty-five divorce suits were commenced in San 
Francisco, and in sixty-one of these, or three-fourths of the 
cases, the wives were the plaintifi*s. During the six years from 
1855 to 1860, inclusive, the number of divorce suits commenced 
in San Francisco was four hundred and forty-seven, and in 
more than three-fourths of the suits divorces were granted, 
and divorces were denied in very few. Some of the suits were 
discontinued or abandoned. The proportion is probably about 
the same in other parts of the state. 

§ 260. Education. — The state has made a liberal provision 
for education. Common schools, free to all white children, are 
maintained by the public treasury, and the large fund provided 
for their support is declared in the constitution to be inviolable. 
The common schools in San Francisco are as good as any com- 
mon schools in the world. Those in the country districts are 
not so good, and yet will compare favorably with most country 
schools. Boys and gii"ls are taught together in these schools — 
an arrangement which is thought, by many parents, to be bad 
for girls over twelve ; and therefore private schools for girls 
have many pupils. The Catholics in San Francisco have their 
own schools, and support them with their own money. They 
dislike the common schools, because pupils are not required 
to study the Catholic catechism there. The state constitution 
provides that there shall be a state university, but it has not 
yet been organized, nor is it likely to be for some years to come. 
There are a number of high schools called "colleges" and "uni- 
versities," mostly maintained by religious sects, but they have 
not yet become so large or strong as to deserve special mention. 

§ 261. 'Vigilance Coinudttecs. — In the last chapter I spoke of 
17 



370 - RESOUFvCES OF CALIFOKNIA. 

the constitution and laws of the state, here I must speak of the 
assumption of unconstitutional and illegal powers by the Cali- 
fornians, in a manner unexampled in other parts of the Union. 
The visfilance committees of San Francisco are famous the world 
over. There were two of these organizations, one in 1851, the 
other in 1856, the latter being a revival of the former. The 
laws for the punishment of crime in California are so loose and | 
so favorable to criminals, and the officers of justice have been so 
corrupt, that the people have at several periods felt that the 
only safe method of having justice executed, was to take the Jl 
matter into their own hands. The vigilance committee of 
1851 was in existence but a short time, and did nothing save 
execute a few thieves. That of 1856 was the more important 
organization by far, and a brief statement of its actions may 
be necessary to a proper understanding of the character of the 
people. Under the American system of universal suifrage, the 
control of the government must fall into the hands of a polit- 
ical party, which again must be managed by a few individ- 
uals, and these, especially in large cities, are often base men 
who make a business of politics. It is so in New York city; 
and it was so in San Francisco in 1855 and the early part of 
1856. The party then in power did not hesitate to elect to 
high office men entirely unfit to be seen in decent society — 
men of notoriously bad character, guilty of numerous crimes. 
Many of the officers of elections were scoundrels, who, after 
the polls were closed, threw away the genuine ballots and sub- 
stituted others in their place, and thus declared their own men 
elected to office. Such conduct was not the exception but the 
rule ; it was practised in many districts and for year after year, 
and the men guilty of it were patronized and protected by men 
high in office. Among the ballot-box stuffiirs, one of the bas- 
est and most prominent was James Casey, a man who had 
been convicted in New York of grand larceny, and had been 
punished by a term of imprisonment in the state prison. lie 
had a little education, some experience in the management of 
political meetings, much tact, and a ready tongue. In San 



SOCIETT. 371 

Francisco he became a politician, and obtained the position of 
inspector of elections in one of the wards ; and there he had 
complete control of the ballot-box, and nsed it to keep himself 
in office and elect his friends or those who paid him. In the 
fall of 1855 Casey managed to be elected member of the board 
of supervisors (which board has the same powers in San Fran- 
cisco as the common council has in most cities), and this election 
was conducted in such a manner that there was no doubt in the 
mind of any reasonable man that the whole aifair was fraudu- 
lent. This man Casey shot a San Francisco editor who had de- 
nounced him as a convict, a ballot-box stnffer, and a scoundrel. 
The shooting took place in the street in open day, and the 
wound was mortal. The editor had made himself prominent 
and popular by exposing various abuses, and no sooner was it 
announced that he was shot, than a great excitement arose, 
men collected by thousands in the street, and acted with a 
passion little short of raving. The vigilance committee, Avhich 
had been dissolved for six years, was reorganized. Out of 
twelve thousand white male citizens nine thousand enrolled 
themselves as members of the committee. They formed them- 
selves into military companies, obtained arms, chose officers, 
and established an armory and a fori. The governor ordered 
them to disband, and threatened to use the military power of 
the state against them, but they set him at defiance, invested 
the jail, took from it Casey and another man, who had com- 
mitted homicide, imprisoned them in their fort, and subse- 
quently hanged them, after trying them secretly. The com- 
mittee arrested a large number of persons on chai'ges of vari- 
ous crimes, executed two others for murder, banished about 
a dozen, and maintained their fort and their military organiza- 
tion for eight months, during which time they were really 
masters of the city. They inflicted no punishment with- 
out trial, held all their trials with much deliberation, and 
were in no haste to execute their sentences. The governor 
tried to call out the militia of the state, but the people gener- 
ally sympathized with the movement, so neither the militia nor 



372 EESOUECES OF CALIFORXIA. 

the legislature would do 'any thing. A few troops were col- 
lected in San Francisco, but the vigilance committee took them 
prisoners and deprived them of their arms. The governor 
applied to the federal government for assistance, but the au- 
thorities at Washington decided that they would not interfere, 
except at the joint request of the governor and legislature. 
The governor was thus left powerless, and the committee 
maintained their fort and their military organization, and really 
had control of the city for eight months. No judicial pro- 
cess was of any service to release a man whom they had im- 
prisoned. They hanged a few scoundrels, drove others from 
the country, frightened still more, destroyed the influence of 
bad men, rendered life and property secure, gave good men an 
influence in the city government, purified the elections, gave a 
better tone to society, commenced a new era of decent man- 
agement of the municipal finances, and gave resiDcctability to 
the city. It is perhaps not more than proper that I should add 
here, that I personally was neither a member of the vigilance 
committee nor an advocate of its policy of setting the laws at 
defiance. This viixilance committee transacted all its business 
secretly, and no record of its transactions has yet been pub- 
lished. It is universally understood that the whole control 
of the committee was vested in a secret executive commit- 
tee of thirty-three, who had been chosen at one of the first 
meetings after the reorganization began, when there were 
but few members present. After the time when they were 
chosen, their names were never submitted for aj^proval to 
the great majority of the vigilance committee, who joined sub- 
sequently, nor were their names ever announced to the citi- 
zens by authority, nor did they ever apjDcar in such a manner 
that either the general public or the members of the vigilance 
committee could know the names of this executive committee, 
which was thus vested with an irresponsible and absolute 
power. Tlie meetings of the executive committee were secret, 
and the greater part of their proceedings was never reported 
even to their constituents. When any military or other action 



I 



SOCIETY. 373 

was to be taken, nothing of the main purpose was communi-' 
cated, save to a few oflBcers. The executive committee had 
really an absolute power. Their orders were implicitly 
obeyed. Whom they ordered into arrest, was arrested ; whom 
they ordered into banishment, was banished. Their trials were 
secret ; a counsellor was granted to the accused, but a coun- 
sellor who was himself a member of the executive committee, 
and of course bound to sustain his associates. The executive 
committee exercised these great powers with great modera- 
tion and wisdom, and without pay ; and all the men whom 
they executed or banished, undoubtedly deserved all the 
punishment inflicted on them. After the vigilance committee 
was disbanded, the executive committee lost all its powers, 
and returned to the position of simple citizens. Such is a brief 
statement of the character of the vigilance committee of San 
Francisco, an organization without its like in American his- 
tory ; a secret society, ruled by a secret executive committee, 
whose names were unknown to the i^ublic, and even to the men 
pledged to obey them, whose meetings were secret, and of 
whose proceedings no report was published either at that 
time or since. The maintenance of the organization in defi- 
ance of the law, was expensive and troublesome, and it is not 
expected that it will ever be revived ; yet the temper of the 
people is such that, rather than submit to the sway of ruffians, 
who had power in San Francisco in 1855, they would certainly 
re-establish the vigilance committee. 

§ 262. Lynch Executions. — Xo association similar to the 
vigilance committee has ever been formed in California out- 
side of San Francisco. There have been many executions by 
lynch law, but there was no permanent organization, delib- 
erate trial of the accused, and delay in the execution of the 
sentence, which marked the proceedings at San Francisco. In 
the interior, the lynching is always done by a mob ; they may 
act without much noise, and give' the accused several hours' 
respite before swinging him up, but it is only a mob after all. 
The people come together in a state of excitement, and dis- 



374 EESOUECES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

patcli the offender while then* blood is still hot. These scenes 
have been comparatively rare of late, but they happen at least 
several times in the course of a year. In the year 1855, no 
less than forty-seven men were executed by mobs in Califor- 
nia, twenty-four for theft, nineteen for murder, one for arson, 
one for rape, and two Indians, for being spies to watch the 
movements of some white men who were making war on their 
tribe in Xorthern California. In nearly every instance when 
a man is executed by mob law in California, he gets his deserts. 
There may be exceptions, of course, but all the probabilities 
are against the victim. Though the mob are excited, they are 
by no means unreasonable ; they frequently give a man a for- 
mal trial, hear the testimony against him, and do not execute 
him until a jury has rendered a verdict against him. Some- 
times the execution is hasty, but in such cases either the crime 
is great and indubitable or there is danger that the offender 
will be rescued by the officers of the law. The method of 
procedure at a lynching is simple. The people collect about 
the place where the j^risoner is kept ; if he is in jail and the 
jailor reflises to give him up, they break the door open with 
crowbars, and take the ^^I'isoner out to a tree. If they have 
leism-e, a jury is organized and put under oath or promise to 
give the accused a fair trial. Some one, no matter whether a 
lawyer or not, is appointed to examine the witnesses for the 
prosecution, and another for the defence ; and after a brief 
hearing of the testimony a verdict is rendered, and in nineteen 
cases out of twenty, the accused must swing. Hanging is 
always used as the mode of execution. The main excuse for 
these lynchings is, that the law is so badly administered that 
there is no security that a criminal will be punished ; but as the 
population becomes more permanent, there is less foundation 
for this plea, and the lynch executions become less frequent. 
They are confined altogether to the remote places in the state, 
and in a few years they wifl entirely ceafee. 

§ 263. Squatter J^eague. — There is now, and has for years 
been, a squatter league secret society, with hundreds of mem- 



SOCIETY. 375 

bers, organized for the purpose of defeating Spanish land 
claims on which squatters have settled, and for the purpose of 
resisting the ejectment of squatters when possible. This se- 
cret society has the support of thousands of squatters who 
are not members. In May, 1861, these squatters refused to 
allow some trespassers to be ejected under legal process from 
the Chaboya rancho near San Jose. Fifteen hundred armed 
men collected to set the law at defiance, and when the gov- 
ernor proposed to send troops, the squatters of Sacramento, 
Sonoma and Marin counties promised to send two armed men 
for every soldier. At one time there was serious danger of 
bloodshed, but the affair was settled by grantijog some squat- 
ter demands not at all consistent with the dignity of the gov- 
ernment. This secret organization, and the seditious feeling 
among a multitude of persons not members, still exist, and 
may yet cause serious trouble. 

§ 264. Anti- Chinese Moh. — The white miners have a great 
dislike to Chinamen, who are frequently driven away from 
their claims, and expelled from districts by mobs. In such 
cases the officers of the law do not ordinarily interfere, and no 
matter how much the unfortunate yellow men may be beaten 
or despoiled, the law does not attempt to restore them to their 
rights or avens^e their wrono^s. 

o o o 

§ 265. Deeds of Blood. — California has obtained a sad no- 
toriety for its deeds of blood, and although the number of 
these has very much decreased, still fatal affrays are common. 
During 1855 a list was kept of all the, homicides in the state, 
and no list has been kept since that year, and therefore I refer 
to a time so remote for statistics. It appears, then, from the 
records of that year, that five hundred and thii'ty-eight persons 
died by violence. Of these three hundred and fifty-seven were 
whites, one hundred and thirty-three Indians, thirty-two Chi- 
namen, and three negroes. The number of Indians killed by 
the whites was no doubt much greater, for the two races were 
at war in various parts of the state, and the skirmishes, which 
almost mvariably proved disastrous to the red men, were in 



37G EESOUECES OF OALIFOKXIA. 

many cases not reported in the papers. Exclusive of the In- 
dians slain there were four hundred and five homicides. In 
many iustances no j^articulars of the killing were given, but of 
those cases where the mode of death was well ascertained, 
there were forty-seven executed by mobs, nine were executed 
according to law, ten were criminals killed by sheriffs or police- 
men in attempting to arrest or detain them, six were foreign- 
ers killed by the collectors of the foreign miners' license, 
thirty-two were killed by Indians, seventeen were killed in jus- 
tifiable homicide by men who were compelled to defend them- 
selves, twelve were killed in fights about mining claims, eight 
were killed in fights at gambliug tables, sixteen were mur- 
dered for purposes of robbery, and forty-six were found mur- 
dered under circumstances that did not indicate whether the 
motive was deliberate murder, sudden anger, robbery, or self- 
defence. These homicides occurred in nearly equal propor- 
tions in the four seasons of the year, and in the different popu- 
lated districts of the state. The homicides of each year 
between 1850 and 1855 were at least as numerous as those of 
the last-named year, but since then there has been a great fall- 
ing off, and now I think the number does not exceed seventy- 
five in a year, exclusive of the Indians, of whom the yearly 
average slain since 1856 has not been less than one hundred. 
It may appear a very singular and rapid change, that the an- 
nual number of homicides in a state should decrease eighty per 
cent, within a period of six years, but it must be remembered 
that California is in a condition of swift transition, and that 
OUT society is far more stable now than it was in 1855. 

Why is it that there are so many bloody affiays in Cali- 
fornia ? The first and great cause is the high temper of the 
people. The Americans are an arrogant race. Every man 
thinks himself as good as his neighbor, if not better. Tney 
are a people who will not be insulted. They consider harsh 
words insulting. They are fond of using harsh words to one 
another. Custom authorizes them to apply the word "liar" 
frequently, and custom justifies a man called " liar" in repay- 



SOCIETY. 377 

ing the epithet witli a blow; and the same custom justifies a 
man who is attacked with the fist, in defending liimself with a 
pistol or knife. In the mining districts, many of the men arc 
constantly armed, so that the weapons of death are rarely out 
of reach. The Californians are reckless of life ; and the men, 
living alone, free from the influence of family and relatives, 
are dissipated, and when heated with liquor and excited by 
gambling, are easily provoked to settle every little quarrel 
with blood. The wild condition of affairs in the early times 
has been impressed upon our society, and we have not yet 
been able to reform it altogether. The multitude of peojile 
from the cotton states have introduced among us their views 
and practices in regard to the use of deadly weapons, and the 
leaven has attached itself to the mass. The majority may 
have different opinions, but one quarrelsome man can compel a 
dozen to carry arms for self-defence. Adultery is held by pub- 
lic opinion to be a justification of homicide, and this is a fruit- 
ful source of deadly quarrels. And then it is to be remem- 
bered, too, that many of the residents of California are men 
who have committed crimes in the Eastern states, in Australia 
and Europe, and have fled hither to escape punishment. Such 
persons, although they may form a small proportion of the 
population, contribute to give trouble. As compared with the 
total numlt>er of homicides, the assassinations for revenge, and 
the murders for monef, are few. Previous to 1856, street 
fights were among the institutions of San Francisco. It would 
frequently be announced by conversation, or even by the news- 
papers in the morning, that a street fight might be expected that 
day between two men whose names were mentioned ; and the 
curious would collect on Montgomery street, the main business 
street, to see the fun. The belligerents, armed each with a 
concealed revolver and a bowie-knife, would walk along the 
street, and on coming near each other would draw their re- 
volvers, and, with or without speaking, would commence firing. 
The fight would be strictly one of self-defence on both sides. 
In the use of deadly weapons, California resembles the Gulf 
17* 



378 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

States far more than the North. The wild condition of af- 
fairs in the early times has been impressed upon our society, 
and we have not yet been able to reform it altogether ; and 
in the matter of carrying deadly weapons and in street fights, 
we have imitated the example of the cotton states. So, too, 
in the matter of duels, of which there have been many in 
California, and some of them of a character so remarkable as 
to attract attention all over the civilized world. Duelling is 
forbidden by the law of the state, and is made punishable as a 
felony by imprisonment for not more than two years, and if 
either party be killed the survivor may be imprisoned not less 
than one nor more than seven years in the state prison ; and 
the constitution of the state provides that no person who has 
been a principal or a second in a duel shall be allowed to vote 
or hold office in the state ; but a hundred duels have been 
fought in the state, and about one-third of them have proved 
fatal to one of the principals, and yet no man has been legally 
punished for duelling, nor has any one been prevented from 
voting or holding office for that reason ; on the contrary, many 
of the duellists have until within a late date held offices amono- 
the most honorable and profitable in the state. 

§ 266. JRdigion. — We have no accurate statistics of the 
churches and church memberships in California. Of the 
155,000 white men in the state, I presume that 10,000 are 
communicants of some Protestant church ; 10,000 of the 
Catholic church ; 2,000 are Jews, and 1,000 are Mormons, 
making 23,000 in all, or 14 per cent. Of the other 86 per 
cent., two-thirds never go near a church, and scarcely claim to 
be Christians ; while the remaining third go to church occa- 
sionally, some of them regularly. The principal Protestant 
churches are the Methodist Church (Xorth), wliich has about 
3,000 communicants, 60 churches, and 65 preachers ; the Meth 
odist Church (South) has about 1,000 communicants, 20 church- 
es, and 40 preachers ; the Old School Presbyterian Church has 
1,000 communicants, 15 churches, and 17 clergymen ; the Xew 
School Presbyterian Church has 500 communicants, 11 church- 



SOCIETY. 379 

es, and 13 clergymen; the Congregationalists have 600 com- 
municants, 11 churches, and 12 preachers; the Cumberland 
Presbyterians have 800 communicnnts and 28 preachers ; the 
Baptists have 1,000 communicants, 42 churches, and 30 
preachers ; the Episcopalians have 600 communicants, 20 
churches, and 18 clergymen ; the Unitarians have 100 com- 
municants, with one church, and one preacher. The total 
number of communicants, as mentioned in this list, including 
women, who are a majority, is less than 10,000 ; but there are 
many persons staying temporarily in the state, and claiming 
membership in congregations in the Eastern states. 

The Catholic priests claim to have 80,000 communicants in 
their church ; and they have VO churches, and 15 priests. 
The Catholics are more attentive to the forms of their faith 
than are the Protestants. 

There are many Mormons in California, but they are scat- 
tered about, and have no meetings or church organization. 
Almost the entire population of the town of San Bernardino 
was once made up of them, but they abandoned the place, at 
the order of Brigham Young, and went to Salt Lake. Such 
Mormons as there m.ay be in the state, are generally consid- 
ered to be industrious and good citizens. 

There are 10,000 Jcavs in the state, and they have three 
synagogues, and two rabbles. The Jews of California are di- 
vided into two main classes, the German Jews and the Polish 
Jews ; and in San Francisco each class has its own synagogue, 
cemetery, and benevolent society. The German Jews are in- 
fected by the progressive spirit of the age, and have adopted 
a reformed ritual ; whereas the Polish Jews adhere to the old 
forms and ceremonies. The Chinamen are, with the exception 
of three or four score Christians, all Buddhists. Buddhism, 
which has been called " the Christianity of the east," and in its 
purer forms is not unworthy of the name, is with them a gross 
superstition, accompanied by idol worship and meaningless 
ceremonies, with no accompanying conception of high spiritual 
truths. The Chi i>men have several places of worship in Call- 



380 RESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

fornia, where, at least once a year, puLlic ceremonies are held. 
One of these places in San Francisco, a chapel about eighteen 
feet wide, by thirty long, and twelve high, has at one end an 
idol of life-size m a squatting position, painted with Venetian 
red. Around this idol are placed banners and curtains of silk, 
and boards with inscriptions painted and carved in Chinese 
characters. In front of the idol is a table, on which are lighted 
candles, sticks of incense burning without a blaze, and filling 
the place with smoke, and various fantastically shaped dishes 
of white metal and brass. On another table are placed flow- 
ers, vegetables, and various articles of food, such as jjieces of 
roast pig and chicken, fish, and other articles, the names of 
which are unknown to Americans. The ceremonies are per- 
formed by men dressed in long robes and acting as priests, 
who march round the room, make genuflexions and bows be- 
fore the idol, and occasionally kneel and recite forms of prayer. 
Many of the Chinamen have in their dwellings little images of 
Buddha, before which they keep tapers burning. Once a year 
they go out in procession with music to the public cemetery, 
where their dead are buried, and set a table there as a feast for 
the spirits of the deceased. 

The wild Indians have no clearly defined religious ideas ; and 
the tame ones, or those who hve among the whites, are so igno- 
rant that their faith is little better than a gross superstition. 

§ 267. Call f or ?iianisms.— The Californians have introduced 
certain words into the English language, or at least have adopt- 
ed them in common use in the state, and a Ust of them, with 
their pronunciation and definition, may not be out of place here : 

Aparejo (a par ay' ho), a Mexican pack-saddle. 

Adobe (a do' ba), a large sun-dried, unburned brick, some- 
times two feet long, a foot wide, and four inches thick. 

Arroyo (ar ro' yo), a brook, or the dry bed of a brook or 
small river. 

Arastra (a ras' tra), a primitive mill for crushing quartz. 

^ Alforja (al for' hah), a bag, usually made of raw cowhide, 
used for holding the articles to be carried by a pack-horse. 



SOCIETY. 



sal 



Bar. — A low bank of sand or gravel, at the side of a river, 
deposited by the stream. 

Bummer. — An idle, worthless fellow, who does no work 
and has no visible means of support. The word "loafer," like 
" lounger," does not designate the general conduct or perma- 
nent character of a man, but only a temporary idleness. A re- 
spectable, industrious man may become a " loafer" by making 
idle, impertinent visits in business places during business hours ; 
but the word " bummer" implies a low, lazy character. It is 
probably derived from the vulgar German words Bummeln 
and 7>?<??i77ie/er, which are about equivalent to "loafer" and 
" loaf." Its origin has been attributed to Boehmen^ the Ger- 
man name of Bohemia, a nation celebrated for the number of 
its sharpers and adventurers. The Gipsies are called Bohemi- 
ens in France, because of their roving lives and worthless char- 
acter. " Bummer" is generally supposed here to be a Califor- 
nianism. 

Bummi7ig^ acting the bummer, used in such phrases as " he 
is bumming around." 

Caballada (ca bal yah' da), a herd of broken horses. 

Canada (can yah' da), a small caiion, a deep ravine, a nar- 
row valley with steep sides. 

Canon (can' yon), originally a tube, and hence applied to 
mean a deep gorge with high, steep walls. Comparatively few 
canons and caiiadas are to be found in that portion of the Unit- 
ed States east of the Mississippi, but they are abundant in Cal- 
ifornia. The Spaniards place the accent on the last syllable ot 
cafion (can yone'), but in ordinary American usage the accent 
is on the first syllable. It is frequently spelt " canyon," and 
" kanyon." 

Corral (cor ral') a pen into which a herd of cattle or horses 
is driven, when one is to be caught. 

To corral., to drive into a corral ; to drive a person into a 
position from which he cannot escape. 

Ih coyote^ a mining term, to dig a hole resembling the bur- 
row of the coyote^ or small California wolf. 



382 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

Claim^ the tract of land claimed for mining purposes by a 
man or party. There are various kinds of claims, such as 
bank, bar, hill, tunnel, flat, &c. 

Cvlor^ a visible quantity of gold found m prospecting. If 
the prospector fluds one or more particles of gold in his search, 
he says he has found the color. 

To dry np^ a slang phrase, meaning to stop, fail, disappear, 
become silent. It is very expressive to Californians accus- 
tomed to see the whole face of the country dry up in the sum- 
mer season. 

Diggings^ a general name for placer gold mines. Wet dig- 
gings r.re in the banks and bars of creeks or rivers ; dry 
^^^(Oji^^QS iire in flats or the beds of gullies, which are dry the 
greater portion of the year. 

Espedientc, the original papers relating to some government 
business, filed in a public ofiice. 

Einharcadero (em bar ca day' ro), a landing-place. 

To freeze out, a miner's phrase, used to express the policy 
whereby stockholders or partners in mines are driven to sell 
out. For instance, if some rich men, owning part of a mine, 
discover that ''it is very valuable, they may conceal that fact, 
and at the same time levy heavy assessments for works which 
can bring no speedy return ; and thus the poorer shareholders 
will be burdened and discouraged, and induced to sell out at a 
low price. 

Fuste (foos' te), a strong saddle-tree, made of wood and cov- 
ered with raw cowhide, used for lassoing. 

Gulch, a gully. 

Ilahilltatlon^ from the Spanish habilitacion., a certificate, or 
stamp on paper, which authorized it to be used for certain pur- 
poses. To habilitate paper, to place the mark of habilitation A| 
upon it. 

To hydraulic, a mining term, to wash dirt by throwing a 
stream of water upon it through a hose and pipe. 

Jaquima (hack' ee ma), a head-stall used in breaking wild 
horses. 



SOCIETY. 383 

To knocJc down^ a miner's phrase, meaning to steal rich 
pieces of auriferous quartz from the lode. 

Manada (ma nah' da), a herd of breeding mares under the 
lead of a stallion. 

Mecate (may cah' te), a rope of hair, used for tying horses. 

Mochilas (mo chee' las), large leathern flaps for covering a 
fuste. 

JPlaza^ a public square in a town. 

Playa^ a beach. 

Pozo, a spring or well. 

Pueblo^ a town. 

To pipe^ to wash dirt by the hydraulic process. 

Pay-Dirt^ auriferous dirt rich enough to pay the miner. 

Placer, from the Spanish, a place where gold is found in 
dirt near the surface of the ground. 

To prospect, to hunt for gold diggings ; to examine ground 
or rock for the purpose of finding whether it contains gold, 
and how much. 
" Prospect, the discovery made by prospecting. 

Rodeo (ro day' o), a collection of wild or half-wild cattle, 
made for the purpose of separating or marking them. 

Pecojida (ray co hee' da), a similar collection of horses. 

Pancho (ran' tsho), before the Americans took California, 
meant a tract of land used almost entirely for pasturage, rare- 
ly less than four square miles in extent, sometimes as much as 
ninety-nine square miles, and in most cases not less than thirty 
square miles. Since the conquest, rancho, and its American 
derivation " ranch," are often applied to small farms, and 
sometimes, in the way of slang, to single houses, tents, and 
liquor shops. "Ranch" is sometimes used as a verb; thus a 
man who opens a farm, according to common parlance, "has 
gone to ranching." 

Panchero (ran tsha' ro), a man who owns and lives upon a 
ranclio. It is usually understood to mean a Spanish Califor- 
nian> 

Pancheria, an Indian hut or a village. 



384 EESOUKCES OF califokxia'. 

Reata (ray ah' ta), a rawhide rope, used for lassoing. 

Rubric^ a flourish, which Mexicans and native Cahfornian^ 
append to their signatures, and which, in lact, they consider 
as an important part of their signatures, and the most diflicult 
to imitate or counterfeit. They often use their " rubrics" alone 
as signatures. To rubricate^ to sign with a rubric. 

Sluice, a wooden trough about fourteen inches wide, and 
ten deep, and not less than thirty feet long, used for washing 
pay-dirt. 

Ground-Sluice, a trough cut in the ground for washing pay- 
dirt. 

Tail-Sluice, a sluice put in below a number of other sluices, 
and depending on them for its supply of diit and water. 

Sluice-Fork, a fork similar to a manure fork, but with blunt 
prongs, as wide at the point as at the heeL The fork is used 
for throwing stones out of the sluices. 

SluiceSead, the quantity of water used in a sluice ; a 
constant stream of water running through an aperture, usually 
two inches high, and from five to fifteen inches long, under a 
pressure of seven inches. 

Slum, slimy mud. 

To strip, to throw off worthless dirt from the top of pay- 
dirt. 

Sierra (see er' ra), originally a saw, a chain of mountains. 

Square Meed, a good meal at a table, as distinguished from 
such meals as men make when they are short of provisions, a 
condition not uncommon among men who make adventurous 
trips into the mountains. 

Tailings, the waste of a sluice, tom, rocker, or quartz-mill. 

Tom, a wooden trough, from ten to fifteen feet long, for 
washing pay-dirt. 

Tom-Stream, or Tom-Head, the amount of water used in a 
tom. 

MocJcer, or Cradle, a machine resembhng a domestic cradle, 
for washing pay-dirt. 

Wing-Dam, a dam in a creek or river, running partly across 



SOCIETY. 385 

its bed and then down stream so as to shut out the water from 
part of the bed. 

Vaquero (va kay' ro — vulgarly pronounced buc ca' ry), a 
herdsman. 

Zartja (zan' ha), a ditch for irrigating agricultural land. 

Zanjero (zan hay' ro) a person whose duty it is to keep irri- 
gating ditches in order. Among the officers of the city of Los 
Angeles is a Zanjero. 

§ 268. Germans and French. — The Germans of California 
have generally become citizens and permanent residents of the 
state, and most of them have learned the English language. 
They have gymnastic clubs and singing societies in all the 
larger towns. Most of the brewers and professional musicians 
in the state are Germans ; and the Germans occupy a large 
place among the cultivators of the A-ine. The town of Ana- 
heim, in Los Angeles county, was laid out by Germans, and 
is almost exclusively populated by them. 

The French in California, as a body, are not citizens, or per- 
manent residents, and have not learned English. Some of the 
largest bankers in San Francisco are Frenchmen, and the city 
owes to Mr. Pioche, a French capitalist, some of its most val- 
uable public enterprises, such as the Mission Railroad, the 
Spring Valley Water Works, and the pleasure resorts of 
Hayes' Park and the Willows. 

§ 269. Spanish Calif ornians. — The people of Spanish blood 
in the state are mostly natives of CaUfornia, Mexico, and Chile. 
As a class, they are poor and ignorant. The Mexicans and 
Spaniards who came to California while Spain held dominion 
of the country, brought few women with them, but took In- 
dian women for wives ; and the descendants of these women 
form a large majority of the Spanish Californians. Among 
the wealthier families, the Indian cast of countenance has al- 
most disappeared. Although the features are thick, the expres- 
sion of the face is mild and pleasant. The complexion is dark, 
and grows darker with age ; the hair is black and straight, the 
eyes black, the cheeks ruddy. Many of the men are hand- 



SS6 RESOmCES OF CALIFOEXIA. 

some, tall, broad-shouldered, larg>^-boned, big-bellied, strong, 
healthy, and long-lived. They grow fleshy as they grow old ; 
and the same remark applies to the women. They are a good- 
natured race, yery kind and obliging to their friends, but out 
of place among Americans, who are too sharp for them in 
trading. Instead of increasing in wealth with the develop- 
ment of the country, the Spanish Californians have been rap- 
idly o-roAving poorer, and now they 0A\m scarcely one-tenth of 
the landed property which they had in 1848. Then they owned 
nearly every thing ; now there is not a leading merchant or 
millionaire among them. They regret the conquest of their 
country. They lived in a very simple manner under the 
Mexican dominion, but they were secure in their property, and 
were the political masters. Xow they form a small and pow- 
erless minority, among a people for superior to them in agri- 
cultural and mechanical skill and business knowledge — a peo- 
ple who are absorbing all their wealth, and who look upon 
them and treat them as inferiors. Although some of the Span- 
ish Californians are content with the change of dominion, yet 
many hate the Americans, and hate them so bitterly that they 
would resort to civil war if there were any hope of success. 
Lideed, the condition of affairs, in some of the counties where 
the Spanish population is most nmnerous, was near civil war 
at various periods between 1851 and 1854. Most of the Span- 
ish Californians live in the country ; their chief wealth is in 
land and cattle, and the chief occupation of the poorer classes 
is herding cattle. Their dwellings are adobe houses, usually 
of one story, often with no floor save the bare earth, and with- 
out chairs. 

§ 270. Chinamen. — The Chinamen in California are nearly 
all very ignorant and very poor. Their number is about fifty 
thousand, of whom more than half have been six or seven 
years in the state. Most of them are engaged in mining ; and 
the remainder are merchants, fishermen, washermen, and a few 
are employed as cooks in hotels, and as farm laborers on farms 
owned by white men. Most of them come from Southern 



SOCIETY. 387 

China, and nearly all of them are members of five great com- 
panies, called the Yung-Wo, the Sze-yap, the Sam-yap, the 
Yan-wo, and Xing-yeung companies. Those companies have 
each a large building in San Francisco, where they lodge and 
feed all the members of their company when they arrive from 
China, or when they come on a visit from the interior. Tlie 
companies are benevolent associations, and take care of their 
indigent and sick. Tliere are no Chhiese beggars in the 
streets, and no Chinese patients in the public hospitals. The 
common laborers are brought to the state under contract to 
work for several years at a low rate of wages (from four to 
eight dollars) per month ; and they usually keep these con- 
tracts faithfully. The employers in these cases are either the 
companies or associations of Chinese capitalists. The China- 
men generally are very industrious ; indeed they are the most 
industrious class of our population, and also the most humble, 
quiet, and peaceful. The merchants are considered to be very 
faithful to their promises, and in San Francisco they can get 
credit among their acquaintances quite as readily as other men 
in similar branches of business. In the mines, the Chinamen 
work in the poorest class of diggings. They own no ditches, 
large flumes, hydraulic claims, or tunnel claims. The white 
miners have a violent antipathy to them, will not permit them 
to work in many districts, and will often drive them from their 
best claims in the districts where they are permitted to work. 
Sometimes the celestials venture to dam a stream, but not often. 
They use the rocker more than any other class of miners. 

In San Francisco, the merchants are usually in partner- 
ships, with not less than three nor more than ten partners ; all 
of whom live in the store, and deal chiefly in Chinese silks, 
teas, rice, and dried fish. The two latter articles form a large 
portion of the food of the Chinamen in the state. They have 
not learned to use bread instead of rice. Those who can af- 
ford it, eat pork, chickens, and ducks. Beef, and most of our 
garden vegetables, do not find much favor with them, even 
among the wealthiest. The washermen are usually in compa- 



388 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

nies of two or tliree, and they have Dumerous little shops in 
the streets of San Francisco, and in the smaller towns. They 
sprinkle their clothes previous to ironing, by filling the mouth 
with water and then blowing it over them. For ironing, in- 
stead of a flat-iron, they use an iron pan with a smooth bottom, 
and kept full of burning charcoal. There are not more than 
one thousand Chinese women in the state, and nine-tenths of 
them are prostitutes of the lowest class. The Chinese children 
are few. 

The Chinese men, women, and children learn English very 
slowly ; most of those who have been five or six years in the 
state cannot understand the most common English words. All 
the Chinamen in California adhere to their national costume, 
with some slight variations. They wear their hair long, use 
no white muslin or linen next the skin, and never put on a 
dress coat or stove-pipe hat. In the cities, they ordinarily use 
wooden-soled shoes, with thin cotton uppers. Instead of a 
coat, they have a short blouse, generally of dark-blue cotton, 
fitting close up to the neck. The wealthy have this blouse 
made of silk or fur. In cold weather, if of^silk or cotton, it is 
wadded. The legs and lower part of the body are enclosed in 
breeches of cotton or silk, tight from the thigh down, and loose 
above. Some of the poorer men find trousers of the European 
pattern more convenient, and wear them. The miners gener- 
ally wear coarse boots or shoes. 

§ 271. Indians. — The Indians are a miserable race, destined 
to speedy extinction. Fifteen years ago they numbered fifty 
thousand or more ; now there may be seven thousand of them. 
They were driven from their hunting-grounds and fishing- 
places by the whites, and they stole cattle for food; and to 
punish and prevent their stealing, the whites made war on 
them and slew them. Such has been the orimn of most of the 
Indian wars which have raged in various parts of the state 
almost continuously during the last twelve years. Scarcely a 
month has passed since 1849, without some hostile encounters 
between the red K^en and the whites in some parts of the state. 



SOCIETY. 389 

At tins time the American residents of Humboldt county are at 
war with the Indians there. The poor Indian, afoot, and armed 
only with the bow and arrow, is no match for the rich Ameri- 
can, armed with rifle and revolver, and mounted on a horse, 
which saves him from fitigue, takes him swiftly to the best 
point of attack, or carries him still more swiftly from danger. 
For every white man that has been killed, fifty Indians have 
fallen. 

In 1848, nearly every little valley had its tribe, and there 
were dozens of tribes in the Sacramento basin, but now most 
of these tribes have been entirely destroyed. Syphilitic dis- 
eases and brandy have co-operated with the bullet and the 
knife to make room for the white men. The Indians are fond 
of strong liquor, and when they can get it, frequently become 
habitual drunkards. The squaws drink as much as the 
" bucks." Among a tribe of drunken men and women, matri- 
monial constancy is not to be expected ; nor is it found among 
the Indian women in California. The infectious disease which 
threatens to utterly destroy all barbarous and semi-barbarous 
nations, has slain many of the red men in this state, as well as 
in other parts of the continent. 

The Indians of California, with the exception of the Mojaves, 
are supposed to belong to the general division of the Shosho- 
nees, wliich includes also the Indians of Nevada Territory, and 
a majority of those in Utah. They are physically and intel- 
lectually inferior to their relatives in Nevada Territory, and 
far inferior to the Indians who dwelt during the last century 
east of the Mississippi River. The red men of this state hav^ 
but a small share of the courage, military spirit, and intellect- 
ual activity of the Shawnees, Miamis, Delawares, and the other 
tribes who contended so stoutly for the possession of the valley 
of the Ohio. The majority of the Californian Indians never 
learned to use fire-arms, and never dared to meet the white 
men in battle. A few in the northern part of the state have 
obtained fire-arms, use them well, and fight stubbornly, but 
they are a small proportion. 



390 ESOURCES OF CALIFOENIA. 

The Californian Indian men are about five feet and a half 
high on an average, and the women four feet and ten inches. 
They are very thick in the chest, and have voices of wonderful 
strength. The children are clumsy, and heavy set. The women 
are very wide in the shoulders and hips, and strongly built. 
Men and women are large in the body, and slim in the legs 
and arms, as compared with Caucasians. When not affected 
by hereditary diseases, caught from the white men, the Cali- 
fornian Indians have healthy constitutions, and formerly they 
lived to a great age. During the last ten years, a number 
have died with the reputation of being more than one hundred 
and twenty years old. It is a common assertion, and one that 
I have never heard contradicted, though I have conversed on 
the subject with men who have seen much of them, that the 
wild Indians never take cold. During the winter of 1849-'50, 
I lived near a tribe in the mines, in what is now Shasta coun- 
ty, and I saw that the men never wore any clothing save a 
deerskin thrown over the shoulders ; that men, women, and 
children went barefooted through a winter when snow lay on 
the ground for a week at a time, and that their huts were only 
about six feet wide, were open on all sides, and on two sides 
had holes large enough for men to get in and out ; and I never 
saw one troubled with a cold or cough. In the tribes living. 
far from the whites, the men usually go naked, and the women 
wear a petticoat made by fastening flags or strips of bark, 
about eighteen inches long, to a girdle. They are very filthy 
in their habits, and their houses are always filled with lice. 
Their form of government is very simple. They have heredi- 
tary chiefs who have very little power. The tribes are small, 
and have no wealth, and no laws. Occasionally a member of 
a tribe gives ofience, and some of the leading ones of a tribe 
agree to kill him, and the sentence is carried into effect by way- 
laying him and shooting him with arrows. Their rule is blood 
for blood. They rarely keep men prisoners, but kill them im- 
mediately after capturing them. Women and children are 
held frequently as prisoners ; and one of the most common 



SOCIETY. 301 

causes of war is tlic capture of women. They have no heredi- 
tary slavery. They have no marriage ceremony, and the 
duration of the marriage rehition depends entirely upon the 
pleasure of the husband. Polygamy is permitted by many of 
the tribes. The women are not prolific, or at least the children 
are few, and mostly boys. The girls are neglected, or inten- 
tionally killed soon after birth, and this policy w411, of course, 
if continued, soon cause an extinction of the race in California. 
In certain tribes on the northern coast, if a mother, having an 
infjint child, dies, the child is buried with her. Most of the 
tribes burn their dead, commencing the cremation in the even- 
ing, and keeping up the fire all night, while the friends watch, 
and the women relatives utter plaintive cries until daylight. 
They have no religious ceremonies ; or no ceremonies to which 
they attach ideas clearly reUgious. Every year, usually in the 
spring, they have a dance, as it is called. They assemble, 
build a large fire, and the men surround it, and keeping their 
knees, elbows, and backs beut, they beat time with their feet to 
a monotonous song, which they sing with the assistance of 
the squaws, who sit off on one side. In some tribes, several 
of the men have pipes, from which they elicit a few notes as 
an accompaniment for the song. 

The squaws are treated like slaves. They are required to 
do all the w^ork, and to attend to every want of their husbands. 
They must collect vegetable food, prepare it, and carry all the 
movable property in times of migration. They are beaten on 
the slightest provocation. The men never consult them 
about the management of public or private affairs. They are 
bought as merchandise from the parent, and treated as slaves 
after the purchase. 

Most of the wild Indians have no permanent place of resi- 
dence. Each tribe has a territory which it considers its own, 
and within which its members move about. Eacli family has 
a hut, and a cluster of these huts is called a rancheria. The 
rancherias are usually established on the banks of streams, in 
the vicinity of oak-trees, horsechestnut bushes, and patches 



392 KESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

of wild clover. Such places are generally on fertile soil with 
picturesque scenery. The huts are made differently in difler- 
ent places. In the Sacramento valley, the most common plan 
was to dig a hole three or four feet deep and ten feet across ; 
erect an upright post in the centre about six feet high ; lay poles 
from the. edge of the hole to rest oA this post ; and cover the 
poles with grass and then with dirt. In some districts the 
hut is made by taking large pieces of pine bark and laying 
them against a frame-work of poles fastened together in a 
conical shape. In the San Joaquin valley it was more con- 
venient to make a frame-work of poles and cover it with rushes 
or tules. These huts may be deserted for a time, but are con- 
sidered the property of the builders, who move, according to 
the seasons, to those places where they can obtain food most 
conveniently. In one month they go to the thickets ; in an- 
other to the open plain ; in another to the streams. 

Their food is composed chiefly of acorns, clover-grass, grass- 
seeds, grasshoppers, horsechestnuts, fish, game, pine-nuts, 
edible roots, and berries. Tlie acorns of California are large, 
abundant, and some of them are not unpleasant to the taste, 
but they do not contain much nutriment as compared with an 
equal bulk of those articles commonly used for food by the 
Caucasian race. The acorns are gathered by the squaws, and 
are preserved in various methods. The most common plan is 
to build a/basket with twigs and rushes in an oak-tree, and 
keep the acorns there. The acorns are prepared for eating by 
grinding them and boiling them with water into a thick paste, 
or by baking them in bread. The oven is a hole in the ground 
about eighteen inches cubic. Redhot stones are placed at 
the bottom of the hole, a little dry sand or loam is thrown 
over them, and next comes a layer of dry leaves. The dough 
or paste is poured into the hole until it is two inches or tliree 
inches deep. Then comes another layer of leaves, more sand, 
redhot stones, and finally dirt. At the end of five or six hours 
the oven has cooled down, and the bread is taken out, an ir- 
regular mass nearly black in color, not at all handsome to the 



SOCIETT. 393 

eye or agreeable to the j^alate, and mixed through with leaves 
and dirt. For grinding the acorns a stone mortar is used. 
This mortar is sometimes nearly Hat, with a hollow not more 
than two inches deep ; and occasionally one will be seen fifteen 
inches deep, and not more than three inches thick in any part 
of it. The pestle is of stone, round, ten inches long and 
three thick. 

Horsechestnuts are usually made into a' gruel or soup. 
After being ground in the mortar, they are mixed with water 
in a waterproof basket, into which redhot stones are thrown, 
and thus the soup is cooked. As the stones when taken from 
the fire have dirt and ashes adhering to them, the soup is not 
clean, and it often sets the teeth on edge. 

Grass-seeds are ground in the mortar and roasted or made 
into soup. 

Grasshoppers are roasted, and eaten without further prepara- 
tion, or mashed up with berries. 

Fish and meat are broiled on the coals. The intestines and 
blood are eaten as well as the muscle. 

Clover and grass are eaten raw. The Indians go out into 
the clover patches, pull up the clover with their hands, and eat 
stalks, leaves, and flowers. They consider clover a great 
blessing, and get fat on it. 

The Indians rarely have salt and never spices, and most of 
their food is such as a white man could not eat, unless reduced 
to near starvation. In eating they use no.plates, cups, knives, 
or forks, nor do they use any utensils in preparing their food, 
save the mqrtar and waterproof basket. The pine-nuts, edible 
roots, ajid berries are eaten raw. Bugs, lizards, and snakes 
are all considered good for food. In those places where the 
tules grow, the roots of those rushes are eaten. Except one 
or two tules in the Colorado Desert, the wild Indians of Cali- 
fornia never tilled the soil. 

They use very few tools. The bow was the only weapon 
for killing quadrupeds. It is made of a reddish wood said to 
be the western yew, and on the back the bow is strengthened 
18 



394 EESOUKCES OF CALIFOKXIA. 

with a covering of deer's sinews. The arrows are of reed, and. 
have a head made of obsidian, which is a transparent, vitreous 
substance of volcanic origin, in appearance very similar to a 
coarse quality of glass. The arrow-heads are made two inches 
long, half an inch wide, an eighth of an inch thick, with a very 
sharp point and sharp edges. The head is ilistened in a split 
of the shaft of the arrow by tying with deer sinews. Such an 
arrow-head can be used but once, for the obsidian is as brittle 
as glass and breaks at the first shock. Some tribes in the 
northern part of the state, poison their arrows by irritating a 
rattlesnake and then thrusting forward a fresh deer's liver, 
which it will bite. After it has bitten repeatedly, and thrown 
some of its poison at every bite into the liver, the latter is 
buried and allowed to putrefy. It is then dug up, the arrow- 
head is dipped in it and allowed to dry. An arrow thus 
poisoned will kill a man, a horse, or an ox in twenty-four 
hours, or less time ; and it is said that the meat of an animal 
thus Idlled maybe eaten with safety. I know that the Indians 
do eat the meat of animals killed with poisoned arrows, but I 
am not positive that the poison was prepared in this manner. 
The poison of the rattlesnake is not injurious when taken into 
a sound stomach ; it is only Avhen injected into the blood that 
its injurious influences are felt. The arrows, even when not 
poisoned, make very dangerous wounds, for the sinew used to 
fasten the head soon softens, and allows the head to remain 
when the shaft is pulled out. 

The Indians are very familiar with the habits of wild ani- 
mals. They know precisely the character of the brushwood 
and ravines in which the deer and bear hide during the day, 
and the places to which they go to feed in the morning and 
evening. In hunting deer and antelope, in places where there 
is grass eighteen inches or two feet high, the Indian will often 
hold the skull and horns of a buck deer before him, and thus 
crawl within bow-shot. The Pit Ri\er Indians dig pits about 
five feet cubic and cover them Avitli brush and grass, and thus 
catch deer, hares, and so forth. For catching wild geese, vari* 



SOCIETY. 395 

ous small and simple kinds of nets are used, and they are 
knocked down witli clubs. Salmon are killed with stones and 
clubs in shallow water, and are caught with spears. Tlieir 
most ingenious spear has a head of bone about one inch and a 
lialf long and sharp at both ends. To the middle is fastened a 
string, which is attached to the spear-shaft. One end of the 
head fits in a socket at the end of the spear-shaft. When the 
spear is thrown the head comes out of the socket and turns 
cross- ways in the fish, and then there is no danger that it will 
tear out. The Indians rarely hunt the grizzly bear. Along 
the ocean beach they get barnacles. Their method of catching 
grasshoppers is to dig a hole several feet deep, in a valley 
where this species of game abounds. A large number of the 
Indians then arm themselves wdtlf bushes, and commence at a 
distance to drive the grasshoppers from all sides toward the 
hole, into which the insects finally fall, and from which they 
cannot escape. The pine-nuts are sought at the tops of the 
pine-trees, which the " bucks" ascend by holding to the rough 
bark with their hands, and pressing out with their legs, so 
that they do not touch the body to the trunk of the tree in 
going up. It is more like walking then climbing. 

The bow and arrow, the spear, the net, the obsidian knife, 
the mortar, and the basket, are the only tools made by the 
Indian. The obsidian knife is merely a piece of obsidian as 
large as a hand and sharp on one side. The baskets are all 
made of wire-grass, a grass w^ith a round jointless stem, about 
a sixteenth of an inch thick and a foot long. The basket- 
work made with this wire-grass resembles the texture of a 
coarse Panama hat, and is waterproof. All the basket-work 
of the Californian Indians is made of this material. The most 
common shape for the basket is a perpendicular half of a cone, 
three feet long, and eighteen inches wide, open at the top. 
The basket, carried on the back of the squaws, is used for 
carrying food, miscellaneous articles, and children. Neither 
the Californian Indians of the present, nor of any preceding 
century, made such mounds, circumvallations, arrow-heads, or 



396 EESOUKCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

spear-heads of flint, or pipes and battle-axes of stone, as are 
found in the state of Ohio. There is nothing to indicate that 
any of the inhabitants of the country, previous to the arrival 
of the Spaniards, were above a very h)w degree of savagism. 
They have no domestic animals save the dog, and that of a 
very low kind. They have so little skill in the preservation 
of food, that, like wild beasts, they grow grossly fat in the 
spring and poor in the winter. The Mojave Indians in the 
Colorado Desert, dej^end for their subsistence chiefly on culti- 
vated food. They plant wheat, grass, pumpkins, and rausk- 
melons. After the annual overflow of the bottom laud, a small 
patch of ground is cleared off with the help of knives and fire ; 
then small holes are made, the seeds are deposited, and the 
field is left to grow up as well as it may. The musk-melons 
are eaten fresh ; the pumpkins are eaten fresh, or sliced and 
dried ; the wheat and grass-seeds are ground, made into a paste 
with Avater and dried in cakes. The mezquit bean, next to 
the cultivated grains, pumpkins, and squashes, is the most 
important article of food with the Indians in the Colorado 
Desert. These beans are prepared for eating in the same 
manner with the wheat and grass-seed. 

The preceding remarks relate to the wild Indians only, and 
are intended to illustrate the natural habits, character, and 
capacity of the race. During the last fifteen years, however, 
they have all been influenced so much by intercourse with the 
whites, that they have lost many of their wild habits and ac- 
quired new ones. In some districts they have fire-arms ; in 
others they obtain much of their food and clothing from their 
Caucasian neighbors. In the counties along the southern coast, 
there are many civilized Indians, who live in adobe-houses, 
and support themselves by herding cattle, breaking horses, 
and working in the grain-fields, orchards and vineyards. They 
have lost much of the savage expression of countenance, and 
some of them have become very industrious and trustworthy 
. laborers ; but the majority are idle and dissipated in their 
habits. They have all learned a vulgar dialect of the Spanish, 



SOCIETY. 397 

and a few speak a little English. The younger ones know 
nothing of any tongue save English and Spanish, but the elder 
Indians, when talking with one another, prefer to use the lan- 
QTuao^e of their fathers. 

§ 272. Cities and Tovms. — Below I have prepared a list of 
the principal towns of Cahforiiia, with the number of voters 
and inhabitants in each. The number of voters is ascertained 
from newspaper reports of the votes cast at the presidential 
election of ISGO; and then taking the vote as a basis, I guess 
at the number of inhabitants. The proportion of voters to in- 
habitants is larger in the mineral than in the agricultural 
districts : 

Towns. Voters. Population. 

San Francisco 14,415 10,000 

Sacramento 3,833 15,000 

Marysville 1,871 7,000 

Stockton 1,445 5,500 

Nevada 1,423 4,500 

San Jose 1,000 4,000 

Grass Valley 1,292 3,500 

Petaluma 822 3,500 

Columbia 1,008 3,000 

Placerville 964 3,500 

Yreka 888 2,500 

Los Angeles 795 3,500 

Oroville 716 2,200 

Folsora 629 2,400 

Downieville 628 2,000 

Sonora 598 1,800 

"Weaverville 571 1,600 

Santa Clara 539 2,500 

Dutch Flat 500 1,500 

Big Oak Flat 491 1,450 

La Porte 479 1,420 

Mokelumne Ilill 470 i 400 

Vallejo 464 1,600 

Forest Hill 457 1,300 

Michigan Bluff 451 ],300 

Georgetown 418 1,300 



398 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

Towns. Voters. Population. 

Santa Cruz 443 1,800 

North San Juan 437 1,500 

Shasta 374 1,100 

Napa 379 1,500 

Oakland 352 1,450 

Diamond Springs 347 1,000 

Murphy's 344 1,000 

San Andres 328 1.000 

Alleghany TowTi 319 960 

Timbuctoo 309 1,000 

Auburn 307 1,000 

Shaw's Flat 301 950 

Mariposa 230 700 

This table is not offered as precisely accurate, but as a rear 
sonable approximation, based upon the best materials within 
reach. The vote cast does not represent the number of voters 
in the town, but in the precinct, and this may extend four or 
five miles beyond the town limits. The total number of peo- 
ple residing in the towns is about 100,000, or one-fourth of the 
whole population. 

§ 273. San Francisco. — San Francisco, according to the 
census of 1860, has a population of 56,805, of whom 52,955 
are white and 3,850 colored; but according to the estimate of 
intelligent residents, the population is not less than 70,000 ; 
and I shall adopt the latter figure as correct. There may be 
40,000 Americans, 12,000 Irishmen, 5,000 Germans, 4,000 
Britons, 3,000 Frenchmen, 2,000 Chinamen, and 3,000 miscel- 
laneous. The Federal census classifies the jDcople according to 
their ages and color, as follows : 

White Males. — Under 1 year, 1,730 ; 2 years, 777 ; 3 years, 
730 ; 4 years, 627 ; 5 years, 645. Total under 5 years, 4,509 ; 
between 5 and 10 years, 1,842; 10 and 20 years, 2,915; 20 
and 30 years, 10,184 ; 30 and 40 years, 9,390 ; 40 and 50 years, 
2,581 ; 50 and 60 years, 842 ; 60 and 70 years, 162 ; 70 and 80 
years, 36 ; 80 and 90 years, 2. Total white males, 32,463. 

Wliite Females. — Under 1 year, 1,563; 2 years, 739 ; 3 years, 
677 ; 4 years, 600 ; 5 years, 551. Total under 5 years, 4,130; 



SOCIETY. 399 

between 5 and 10 years, 1,831 ; 10 and 20 years, 3,198; 20 
and 30 years, 6,22(5 ; 30 and 40 years, 3,441 ; 40 and 50 years, 
1,119; 50 and GO years, 484; GO and VO years, 122 ; '70 and 
80 years, 52 ; 80 and 90 years, V. Total white females, 20,610. 

Chinese. — Males of all ages, 2,168 ; females do., 448. Total 
Chinese, 2,616. 

Colored. — Males of all ages, 711 ; females do., 435. Total 
colored, 1,146. 

Reccqntulation. — "White males of all ages, 32,463 ; females 
do., 20,610. Total whites, 53,073 ; Chinese, male and female, 
2,616 ; colored, 1,146. 

San Francisco is the chief commercial and mannfactnring 
city of this coast. The vessels which entered the port in 1860 
numbered 1,686, and had an aggregate measurement of 500,000 
tons. Of the 1,686 vessels, 325 were from foreign ports, 115 
from American ports on the Atlantic, 1,231 from American 
ports on the Pacific, and 15 were from whaling voyages. 

The first house was built in 1835, and the place was then 
called Yerba Buena, Spanish for " good herb," apj^lied to a 
species of mint growing in the vicinity. In 1847 the name 
was changed to San Francisco. In 1846 the population was 
six hundred, and had grown to about one thousand in the 
spring of 1848, when the gold fever broke out. During July, 
August, and September, the town was deserted by many of its 
residents ; but as the people became impressed with the rich- 
ness and extent of the mines, and as adventurers began to 
ari'ive from abroad, the population of the town increased, and 
then suddenly it sprang from an obscure village to a world- 
famous city. In May and June, 1850, and in the same months 
the next year, great conflagrations swept away the wooden 
shanties with which the main part of the city was built up ; 
and it was not until the latter half of 1851, that the citizens 
commenced to erect the numerous fine brick stores which 
now ornament the principal business streets. The sand ridges 
on the site of the city were cut down, and the hollows were 
filled in ; and the shallow cove in front of the mainland was 



400 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

also filled in, and made the foundation for the busiest part of 
the town. 

In 1861, according to statistics published in the City Di- 
rectory^ there were 11,265 buildings in the city : 9,308 of wood, 
1,898 of brick, 47 of iron, 6 of stone, and 6 of adobe. These 
buildings are thus classified according to their height : 

Wood — one story, 4,034 ; two stories, 5,090 ; three stories, 
180; four stories, 4 — 9,308. 

JBrick — one story, 272 ; two stories, 1,125 ; three stories, 
438 ; four stories, 59 ; five stories, 3 — 1,898. 

Iron — one story, 8 ; two stories, 30 ; three stories, 6 ; four 
stories, 3 — 47. 

Adobe — one story, 1 ; two stories, 3 ; three stories, 1 ; four 
stories, 1 — 6. 

St07ie — one story, 1 ; two stories, 3 ; three stories, 1 ; four 
stories, 1 — 6. 

According to the same authority there were, in 1860, 800 
grog-shops, 373 groceries, 288 lawyers, 276 tailor-shops and 
clothing-stores, 248 boarding-houses,' 189 physicians, 179 
brokers, 150 cabinet-makers, 150 butchers, 136 cigar-shops, 
121 dry-goods stores, 120 carpenters, 95 barbers and hair- 
dressers, 85 dealers in coal and firewood, 84 restaurants, 84 
watchmakers and jewellers, 78 fruit-stores, 66 bakeries, 65 
house and sign painters, 64 stove and tinware stores, 33 lum- 
ber yards, 24 breweries, 20 auction-stores, 17 banks, and 8 
assay-offices. 

There are thirteen daily and tw^elve weekly newspapers, and 
five monthly magazines, published in San Fi-ancisco. Of the 
dailies, seven appear in the morning and six in the afternoon ; 
seven are published in the English language, two in French, 
two in German, and two in Spanish. Of the weekly papers, 
one is an organ of the Methodists, anothe'r of the Methodist 
Church South, another of the Congregationalists, one of the 
Catholics, two of the Jews ; one is commercial, one is filled 
with miscellaneous reading matter, another is agricultural, 
another devotes itself to topics interesting to firemen and sol- 



SOCIETY. 401 

diers, another to mining, and the last fills its columns ^vith 
police reports. 01" the monthly magazines, three devote them- 
selves to general reading matter, one is medical, and the last 
Presbyterian. There have been Italian and Chinese newspa- 
pers in San Francisco, but there are none here now. 

The Germans, French, Italians, Swiss, Scandinavians, Chi- 
nese, lUyrians, German Jews, Polish Jews, and Irish, have 
each a benevolent society, organized mainly for the purpose 
of rendering mutual assistance in case of illness. There is a 
Protestant and a Catholic Orphan Asylum, a House of Refuge, 
and an Asylum for the Deaf, Dumb, and Blind. The Masons, 
Odd Fellows, and Independent Order of Knights, are other 
benevolent associations established in our city. 

§ 274. Sacramento. — Sacramento City, the political capital 
and second town of California, is situated near the centre of the 
Sacramento basin and of the state — is one hundred and twenty- 
five miles by the course of navigation, and seventy-five miles in 
a direct line, distant from the ocean, on the southeastern corner 
of land formed by the junction of the Sacramento and Ameri- 
can Rivers, at an elevation of thirty feet above the sea, and in 
latitude 38° 33' and longitude 121° 20'. The business part of 
the city is about twenty feet above low- water mark in the 
Sacramento River, which, in front of the town, during the dry 
season, rises and falls about a foot with the tide. (The figures 
in the preceding sentence were correct previous to the flood 
of 1861-62 ; whether they will be after it has passed away is 
questionable. I write this vi^hile it still prevails ; and it is said 
that, during the flood, gravel to the depth of twelve feet has 
been deposited in the river-bed in front of Sacramento.) The 
site is level, and in the midst of a wide plain, most of which is 
bare of trees, and much of which is not cultivated. The 
streets are Avide and straight, run w^ith the cardinal points of 
the compass, and are designated only by numbers and letters. 
Those parallel with the Sacramento are first, second, third, 
and so forth ; those parallel Avith the American are A, B, C, 

and so on. The main business part of the city is near the 
18* 



402 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

Sacramento, extending from first to sixth, and from 11 to L 
streets. The houses and stores here are mostly built of brick, 
one or two stories high. The streets are gravelled or planked ; 
the side-walks are planked or paved with brick, and covered 
with awnings to give protection against the sun. In those 
parts of the town used for dwellings, the houses are chiefly of 
wood, neatly painted, and surrounded by gardens, and the 
streets are lined with shade-trees, such as cottonwood, willow, 
sycamore, elm, and locust. There are water- works and gas- 
works. The water is pumped up from the Sacramento River, 
which is so turbid, even at its lowest stage, that six inches of 
mud are deposited monthly in the reservoir. The gas is made 
from imported coal. A railroad twenty miles long connects 
Sacramento with Folsom, which is connected with Lincoln by 
another road of about the same length. A steamboat leaves 
Sacramento daily at two p. m. for San Francisco ; thrice a 
week, starting in the morning, for Marysville ; and at least 
thrice a week for Red Bluff. Stages run daily to Marysville, 
Auburn, Placerville, Coloma, Jackson, Stockton, and Fairfield. 
The first settlement by white men on the site of Sacramento 
was made in 1839, by John A. Sutter, a Swiss by birth, who, 
after having served as a captain in the body-guard of Charles 
X. of France, came to the United States, where he was Ameri- 
canized. He afterwards came to California and Avas admitted 
to Mexican citizenship. He obtained a grant of eleven square 
leagues of land on the eastern bank of the Sacramento River, 
and under that grant the title to the site of Sacramento City is 
now held. In 1841 he built some adobe buildings, which lie 
dignified with the title of New Helvetia, Avhile to the Ameri- 
cans it was generally known as " Sutter's Fort." It was, for 
a long time, the only place where white men had a permanent 
foothold in the Sacramento basin ; and it was a place of im- 
portance, as the first point where the American trappers, 
travellers, and immigrants, entering the territory from the 
eastward, could obtain provisions, ammunition, and horses, 
and rest secure against Indians. Sutter treated all comers 



SOCIETY. 403 

witli the utmost generosity and lij^eranty ; no white man was 
turned away because of inability to pay for food or lodging. 
The first gold diggings were discovered about twenty-five 
miles eastward from the fort, which became the chief trading 
point between San Francisco and the mines. The adventurers 
ascended the Sacramento River to the mouth of the Ameri- 
can, where they landed, and their goods were taken by ox- 
wagons to the fort, two miles distant, where they prepared 
themselves for the land journey. Before the first year of 
gold mining had come to an end, it was evident there must be 
a town on the bank of the Sacramento at the mouth of the 
American, so the present town site was laid off in October, 
1S48, and the New Year's day following the building of the 
first house (of logs), near the Sacramento River, was com- 
menced. On the 8th January the lots were sold by auction, 
and were described as lying in the town of " Sacramento." 
The ford and its vicinity continued to be the chief place of 
business until April, '49, when the bank of the Sacramento 
was found to be much more convenient for purposes of busi- 
ness, and the merchants and traders moved. Tiie town very 
soon became the most important centre of trade and popula- 
tion in the state, next to San Francisco, and it has continued 
to hold the same relative position, growing with the growth 
of the state, notwithstanding many severe disasters to which 
it has been exposed. In 1851 there was a serious riot about 
land titles ; on the 3d of November, 1852, the greater part 
of the town, including six hundred houses, was destroyed by 
fire, with a pecuniary loss estimated at the time at $5,000,000 ; 
and the city was flooded in January, 1850, in March, 1852, in 
January, 1853, and in December, 1861, and in January and 
February, 1862. In 1853 the business part of the town Avas 
raised about five feet, the streets being filled hi with gravel to 
that depth, and a levee or embankment was built round the 
city, extending about a mile along the bank of the Sacramento 
and three or four miles along the bank of tlie American. The 
flood of 18G1 an 1 '62 proved extremely disastrous. It filled 



404 EESOUECES OF CALIFOTwXIA. 

every part of the city, was three feet deep in every street ; in 
some places fifteen feet deep. Gardens were destroyed, fences 
carried away, domestic animals drowned, furniture ruined, 
and many of the people driA^en to take refuge in San Fran- 
cisco and other towns not afflicted by the general scourge. 
A long time will pass before the city will recover from the in- 
juries inflicted upon it by the flood of 1861-'62. 

The assessed value of the taxable property of the city is 
about 87,000,000 ; the public debt of the city is 81,800,000. 

§ 275. Stocl'to?i. — Stockton is situated three miles eastward 
from the San Joaquin River, on the bank of a navigable tide- 
water slough, or creek (using the word in its British meaning), 
which is eighty feet wide and eight feet deep." The town site 
is in the midst of low, flat, tule land, which is intersected by 
numerous sloughs. The population is about six thousand. The 
town has a pleasant appearance. Many of the dwellings are 
neatly built and are surrounded by elegant gardens. Shade-trees 
are abundant. Fresh water is supplied to the city, for domestic 
purposes and for irrigating the gardens, by one hundred and 
fifty windmills, which pump it up through lead pipes, thrust 
down twenty feet deep into auger holes two inches, wide. So 
abundant is the water in the soil at that depth, that there is no 
difiiculty in obtaining it in this manner. Stockton is nicknamed 
" The City of Windmills," and indeed the name appears very ap- 
propriate to the traveller who approaches the town on a windy 
day, and at a distance sees little save a multitude of great arms 
revolving furiously above and among the trees and house-tops. 

Stockton is the debarking point for the travellers and mer- 
chandise on their way from San Francisco to all parts of the 
basin of the San Joaquin River, including the important 
mining counties of Mariposa, Tuolumne, and Calaveras. The 
entire population of the eight counties in the basin of the San 
Joaquin River is, according to the census of 1860, 60,837, 
scattered over an area of about 16,000 square miles. During 
the winter, at least in wet times, the roads leading out of 
Stockton are very muddy, but when the ground is dry, im- 



SOCIETY. 405 

mense m agons are used in great numbers, hauling goods out 
to the mining camps and to VisaUa. Some of these wagons 
have bodies sixteen feet long and six feet high, and are drawn 
by teams of eight or ten mules. Occasionally a smaller wagon 
will be fastened on behind the larger one, and then at any 
Bteep hill one wagon is hauled up at a time. During high 
water, a steamer runs up the San Joaquin River from Stockton 
to Fresno City, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles 
by the river. A steamer runs every day from San Francisco 
to Stockton, and stages leave the latter place every morning 
for the principal towns of the southern mines. 

The first settlement on the place was made in 1844 by 
Charles M. Weber and Mr. Gulnac, the latter of whom ob- 
tained a grant of the land from the Mexican government in 
that year. They had some trouble with the Indians, and Gul- 
nac sold out to his partner, who would not give the rancho 
up, and afterwards, when the place became important for its 
commercial advantages, he became the founder and father of 
the town, where he still resides. The name was selected in 
honor of Commodore Stockton, who commanded the Ameri- 
can naval forces on this coast during the war with Mexico, and 
contributed much to the conquest of California. The town, 
like Sacramento and Marysville, was overflowed during the 
great flood of 1862, the water having covered all the streets on 
the 11th of January, and stood for days more than a foot deep, 
in the highest of them. 

§ 276. llarysville. — Marysville, the third town in the state, 
containing a population of seven thousand, is situated between 
the Feather and Yuba Rivers at their junction. The site, 
like that of Sacramento, is flat, and in the midst of the large 
valley, and has been raised artificially above its natural level, 
to protect the houses against floods. Marysville resembles 
Sacramento, though smaller, and its residents claim that it is 
the handsomest town in the state. The first settlement was 
made in 1841 by Theodore Cordua, a German, who built a 
couple of adobe houses and called the place New Mecklen- 



406 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

burg. Ill 1849 a number of persons went there, and the place 
was called Yubaville. In January, 1850, the town w^as laid 
off and named after Mrs. Mary Covillaud, the wife of the chief 
proprietor. On the 31st of August and the 10th of Septem- 
ber, 1851, two large fires occurred, destroying almost the 
whole town. In the spring of 1852 the business part of the 
town was covered with water, and the next year it was raised 
twelve feet. The town was again flooded in December, 1861, 
and January, 1862. Marysville is at the head of navigation on 
the Feather River. The distance by w^ater is about seventy 
miles from Sacramento ; by the stage road it is forty-five miles. 
From Marysville the counties of Nevada, Sierra, Butte, Plu- 
mas, and Yuba, which contain an aggregate population of 
67,977, obtain all their suj^plies of imported goods. Stages 
run to the main towns of these counties every day. 

§ 277. N'evada. — Nevada, the fourth town of the state, cast 
1,423 votes at the last Presidential election, and has a popula- 
tion of about 4,500. It is the largest town in the mining dis- 
tricts, but owes much of its importance to its trade. It is on 
an important route of travel across the Sierra, and does an ex- 
tensive trade w'ith the adjacent mining counties of Sierra and 
Plumas. The immediate vicinity of Nevada is the most pro- 
ductive quartz district in the state. The town of Nevada was 
founded in 1849. Grass Valley, which lies only five miles dis- 
tant, is nearly as large as Nevada. The latter jjlace is sixty- 
nine miles distant from Sacramento. 

§ 278. Los Angeles. — The town of Los Angeles, formerly 
called Pueblo de los Angeles, or the Pueblo de la Reina de los 
Angeles — the town of the Queen of the Angels — is the largest 
town in the southern part of the state, and has a population of 
about 3,500. It was founded about 1780, and was built up to 
nearly its present size previous to the American conquest. 
The population was probably nearly as large under the Mexi- 
can dominion as at present, but the finest buildings in the 
place have been erected within the last tw^elve years. The 
town is situated on the western bank of the Los Ano-eles 



SOCIETY. 407 

River, wliere that stream breaks throngli tlie range of low 
hills, twenty-five miles north of the bay of San Pedro. The 
streets are mostly of good width, but they are not straight ; 
they do not cross each other at right angles ; they are not 
graded, nor are they paved. All the old houses are built of 
adobes, and most of them are of one story, with flat roofs of 
asphaltum. The new houses are of wood and brick. On the 
northwestern side of the town, and very near to the most busy 
part of it, is a hill about sixty feet high, whence an excellent 
view of the whole place may be obtained. The vineyards and 
gardens are beautiful. There are 2,500 or 3,000 acres of bril- 
liant green — the largest body of land in vineyard, garden, and 
orcliard within so small a space in the state. The fences fix 
the attention of the stranger. They are made of willow-trees, 
planted from nine inches to two feet apart, the spaces between 
the trunks being filled with poles and brush. After the fences, 
the stranger's notice is attracted by the zanjas^ or irrigating 
ditches, which run through the town in every direction. These 
zcirijas^ vary in size, but most of them have a body of water 
three feet wide, and a foot deep, running at a speed of five 
miles an hour. They carry the water from the river to the 
gardens, and are absolutely necessary to secure the growth of 
the fences, vines, and many of the fruit-trees, at least when 
young. One of the officers of the town is the zaiijero^ whose 
duty it is to take charge of the zanjas^ see that they are kept 
in order, and that the water is equally distributed among those 
entitled to it. Entering the enclosures, we are among the 
vines, orange, lemon, lime, citron, pear, apple, peach, olive, 
fig, and walnut trees. Many of the vines are from ten to 
thirty years of age. The population of the place may be de- 
scribed as of nearly four equal classes, Americans, Europeans, 
Spanish Californians and Indians. The Americans own most 
of the houses and land in the town, the Europeans probably 
do most of its trade. The town is the seat of the county 
government, and the chief business place in this part of the 
state. Its merchants trade largely to Salt Lake. Los Angeles 



408 RESOURCES OF CALIFORXIA. 

has mail communication Avith San Francisco twice a month 
by steamer, and twice a week by stage. It is also con- 
nected with the main towns of the state by a line of telegraph. 
The general impression upon my mind, after spending the last 
week in September in the place, is that it is one of the most 
pleasant places in the world, known to me, to visit. The lux- 
uriant vegetation, with its semi-tropical character, is peculiarly 
agreeable to the sons of the North. The *' chme of the sun," 
" the land of the cypress and myrtle," " wliere the citron 
blooms and the golden oranges glow amidst the dark-green 
leaves, have ever been with the poets of the colder lands the 
symbols of a terrestrial paradise, and some of the most bril- 
liant verses of Goethe and Byron have been inspired by ad- 
miration of them. The. song of Mignon came vhidiy before 
me as I walked through the gardens of the City of the Angels. 
Luscious fruits, of many species and unnumbered varieties. 
loaded the trees. Gentle breezes came through the bowers. 
The water rippled musically through the zanjas. Delicious 
odors came from all the most fragrant flowers of the temper- 
ate zone. Julius Froebel speaks thus of Los Angeles in his 
book Aus AonerlJca : " I could wish no better home for my- 
self and my friends than such a one as noble, sensible men 
could here make for themselves. Nature has preserved here, 
in its workings and phenomena, that medium between too 
much and too little, which was one of the great conditions of 
high civilization in the classic regions of ancient times. Indeed, 
when we seek in other lands for places like Los Angeles and 
Southern California generally, we must turn our eyes to tlie 
Levant. In the United States there are no kindred spots." 
The town is situated on the banks of the Los Angeles 
River, twenty-five miles from the ocean. The j^opulation 
numbers about 3,500. The port of Los Angeles is San Pedro, 
twenty five miles southward, where there are only a couple of 
houses. 

§ 279. Petaluma. — Petal uma, situated on the flat bank of 
the navigable creek of th.e same name, ten miles from San 



SOCIETi'. 409 

Pablo Bay, has a population of about 3,500, and owes its pros- 
perity to the trade of the valleys of Petakima, Santa Kosa, and 
Russian River, and the plain of Bodega, which communicate 
through this place with San Francisco. It is on the land mail 
route which connects Mendocino and Humboldt counties with 
the centre of the state. The houses are mostly of frame, and 
n(me are more than ten years old, the town having been laid 
oif in 1851. Petaluma sends more butter and cheese to the 
market than any other town in the state. 

§ 280. San Jose. — San Jose may have about 3,500 inhabit- 
ants. It is situated in the Santa Clara valley, ten miles south- 
eastward from the bay, and fifty miles, by the stage road, from 
the city of San Francisco. The town was laid out about the 
beginning of the century, and many of the houses are of adobe, 
and were built before the American conquest. The streets 
are lined with shade-trees, and gardens filled with beautiful 
fruit-trees and flowers pji-e abundant. The place is dusty 
during the summer, but otherwise is very pleasant. There 
are eleven hundred acres of orchard in the vicinity of San 
Jose, more than in any other equally small district in the state. 
One of the boasts of San Jose is the "alameda," which prop- 
erly means " a place of elms," but is here applied to a road 
three miles long, lined with willow and cottonwood trees. 
The trees stand close together, and are of large size, so that 
they form a dense shade. Unfortunately, the road under them 
is extremely dusty in summer, and muddy in winter. The 
port of San Jose is Alviso, seven miles to the north, on the 
banks of the Guadalupe, or Alviso slough. 

§ 281. Santa Clara. — Santa Clara, three miles westward of 
f^an Jose, and connected with it by the alameda, has a popula- 
tion of about 2,000. It is a new town, and nearly all the houses 
are of wood. The principal builBing is the old mission church, 
erected in 1822. It is now used as part of a Jesuit college. 
The mission of Santa Clara was founded in 17*77, and a church 
was built on the bank of the Guadalupe Creek, at a place called 
" Socoistika," the Indian name of the laurel-trees which grew 



410 EESOUPvCES OF CALIFOPwXIA. 

there. Two years later this building was swept away by a 
flood, and in 1781 a new church was commenced, half a league 
distant from the river, in a grove of oak-trees, the Indian 
name of which, "Gerguensen," was given to the vicinity. This 
church was destroyed by an earthquake in 1818. The present 
church was consecrated in 1822. 

§ 282. Columbia. — Columbia, the largest town of the south- 
ern mines, is sixty-five miles from Stockton. The place has a 
population of about three thousand, and includes many good 
brick buildings. The town was laid off in 1850. 

§ 283. PlacerHlle. — Placerville, though it cast only nine 
hundred and thirty-foiir votes in 1861, is really, after Stockton, 
the most important town in the state, and its population will 
soon be proportionate to its business. It is on the main road 
from Sacramento to \Yashoe and Esmeralda, and is the point 
where travellers going eastward prepare for their trip over the 
rugged portion of the mountain, and those coming westward 
rest from their toils. It is also on the route of the great over- 
land mail and telegraph. It may be that there is less snow 
and an easier natural grade on the other roads across the Sierra 
Nevada, but the Placerville road has been more improved than 
any other. It is more convenient to the great body of trade 
and travel from San Francisco and Sacramento. It has more 
houses to accommodate and protect travellers, and, during the 
winter, has more travel, and receives more attention, and there- 
fore it is, for general use, the best road. 

§ 284. Yreka. — Yreka, the county seat of Siskiyou county, 
the largest town north of Marysville, has a population of about 
twenty-five hundred. It is situated at an elevation of fifteen 
hundred feet above the sea, in the valley of Shasta River, 
about twenty miles northwest from Mount Shasta. It is a 
mining town, being situated in a rich mining district, and 
founded on pay-dirt. The place is shut in by high mountains, 
the Siskiyou ridge on the north, the Sierra Nevada on the east, 
the Scott and Trinity ridges on the south, and the coast range 
on the west. The town is shut in by snows during part of 



SOCIETY. 411 

every winter, and there is frost in every month of tlie year. 
Most of the merchandise sent out from this point, to mining 
camps in the vicinity, goes on pack-nniles. The goods ini- 
portedTby Yreka are hauled one hundred miles, from Red Bluff, 
whidi is one hundred and seventy-five miles from Sacramento 
by the river. The town is on the main road between the Sac- 
ramento and Willamette valleys, and occupies a central position 
in the basin of the Klamath River, and will therefore probably 
maintain its importance. 

§ 285. Vallejo. — Vallejo, a town of about eight hundred 
inhabitants, is situated at the mouth of Napa River, on the 
northwestern side of San Pablo Bay, from which it is separated 
by Mare Island. The town was laid out in 1850 by M. G. 
Vallejo, for the capital of the state. He supposed at the time, 
and so did the public, that he was a millionaire. He owned 
large tracts of land, then estimated to be worth* several mil- 
lions of dollars at least. Among his possessions was the Suscol 
rancho, and he was induced to believe that if he would lay off 
a town and make a liberal offer of land and money to the state, 
the capital would be establishes there, and increase the value 
of his land so much that he would profit largely by the affair. 
The suggestion appeared reasonable, and he adopted it, offer- 
ing much land and three hundred and seventy thousand dollars 
in cash for the establishment of the capifal at Vallejo — the three 
hundred and seventy thousand dollars to be spent in erecting 
public buildings. The offer was accepted, and the capital was 
located at Vallejo, but the legislature went thither at a time 
when there were no houses there, and they immediately went 
away. Senor Vallejo did not pay the money which he had 
offered, and finally the capital was established at Sacramento, 
where it is likely to remain. The business of Vallejo now de- 
pends chiefly upon the United States navy-yard and dry-dock, 
on Mare Island. The place is one Avhich may have much im- 
portance in the future of Cahfornia. It has the followmg 
resources : 

J^'irsL — It is at the head of navigation of the waters tribu- 



412 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

tary to San Francisco Bay for large sea-going vessels. It has 
a fine harbor, jDerfectly protected against all winds, with good 
holdingf-g-round, and extent enouo-h to accommodate all the 
commerce which will ever visit it. That portion sufficiently 
deep at low water for vessels drawing four fathoms, is three 
miles long by a quarter of a mile wide, and for smaller vessels 
the harbor is much larger. The best chart of the harbor is 
'No. 61 in the II. S. Coast Survey Report for 1857, which re- 
port can be found in all public and many private libraries. 
The navigation to the harbor from the Golden Gate, a distance 
of twenty-six miles, is excellent, the channel being wide and 
deep, and the winds strong and regular. 

Secondly. — The town is in the midst of a fertile district. 
The country north of San Pablo and Suisun Bays is the richest 
agricultural district of the state. The valleys of Petaluma, 
Santa Rosa, Russian River, Sonoma, Napa, Suscol, Suisun, 
and Vaca, form a collection which, for extent of fertile soil, 
abundance of water, and mildness of climate, have no equal of 
like extent in California. These lie to the northwest, north, 
and northeast of Yallejo, while south and southeast lie the San 
Pablo, San Ramon, Amador, and Diablo valleys. 

Tliirdly. — Vallejo has a magnilicent site for a town. The pres- 
ent village is built on the slopes of hills about a hundred or a hun- 
dred and fifty feet high, w^hich rise from the harbor so gently, 
that a heavily laden wagon can be drawn over without an extra 
team. There are no deep gullies, and no sand. About half a 
mile back from the landing lies a beautiful and very fertile 
plain, called "Vallejo Valley," several miles wide and extend- 
ing from the lower part of the harbor, upon which it opens, 
northward to Suscol. I have never seen a city provided with 
such a magnificent place for country residences as this. 

Fourthly. — The town must be the main trading point of a 
large agricultural population, Suscol is now one of the best- 
tilled parts of the state. 

FlftJily. — Vallejo has peculiar railroad facilities. She can 
have railroads running almost the entire distance on level 



SOCIETY. 413 

plains to Petal iima, Santa Rosa, Ileal dsburg, Sonoma, Napa, 
Fairfield, Marysville, Sacramento, Stockton, Amador Valley, 
Oakland, San Jose, etc. 

SlxtJdy. — She has a climate similar to that of San Francisco, 
where ice never forms and summer clothes are never worn — 
precisely that degree of constant coolness most favorable to 
continuous labor, both mental and physical. 

Seve7ithly. — She has the U. S. Navy- Yard on Mare Island 
at her doors, and must supply the laborers to do the work 
there. This navy-yard must always be of great importance, 
and the government works alone w^ill build up a considerable 
town. Puget Sound is the only other point on the American 
coast of the Pacific where a navy-yard can be established, and 
a long time may pass before one will be required there. 

JEigJitJily. — There is a possibility that the difficulties in the 
navigation of the Sacramento River, below Sacramento City, 
will make it necessary to connect that place and the valley 
north of it with the deep water, by a railroad to Yallejo. 

It is estimated that forty thousand tons of dirt are carried 
down into the Sacramento River every day from the mines, 
and the effect to fill up the bed of the river is proved by past 
experience. The time must come wheii goods must be carried 
from the bay to the central and northern mines by land, and 
the sooner the preparations are made for this approaching 
change, the better. That land shipment, when commenced, 
must go through Vallejo. 

Ninthly, — In San Francisco great damage is done to the 
wharves by the shipworm ; in Vallejo the water is so fresh 
that wharves and boats are secure against that scourge. 

§ 286. Visalia. — Visalia is situated in the "Four Creek 
country,'* about fifteen miles northeastward from Tulare Lake. 
The " Four Creek country" is formed by Cahuilla Creek, which, 
after leaving the Sierra Nevada, spreads out into a number of 
channels, and these again subdivide, and moistening a con^sider- 
able district of rich soil, render it very productive. Visalia 
has a population of one thousand five hundred, and is the 



414 RESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

largest town in the San Joaquin basin southward of Stockton. 
It has now the trade of a radius of nearly a hundred miles,' 
and having a central situation will no doubt maintain its rela- 
tive importance. The town was overflowed with water sev- 
eral feet deep by the great freshet of January, 1862. 

§ 287. Red Blujf. — Red Bluff, at the head of navigation 
on the Sacramento River, one hundred and seventy-five miles 
above Sacrjlmento City, is a place of about one thousand in- 
habitants. It is the point at which the merchandise is landed 
from the Sacramento steamers for Shasta, Siskiyou and Trinity 
counties, with an aggregate population of 17,114. Sometimes 
the river is so low that the boats cannot reach Red Bluff, but 
this is ia rare event. There have been attempts to remove ob- 
structions above Red Bluff so that the head of navigation 
should be at Cottonwood, but these attempts have hitherto 
been vain. 

§ 288. Martinez, — Martinez is situated on the southern side 
of the Straits of Carquinez, in a little valley. The population 
is about six hundred. It is a quiet' pleasant village, where 
trade is dull and life slow. It is connected with the world by 
a steam ferry-boat, running to Benicia. It would probably be 
a much more prosperous place if the title to the land on which 
it is situated Avere clear, but it is claimed under three grants, 
all of which have been confirmed, and nobody knows which 
one will take it. The town has a peculiar climate, with the 
same cool temperature as at Benicia, very much like that of 
San Francisco, but fogs are rare, and the winds are broken by 
hills. It is a climate similar to that of Oakland, without the 
wind, and is tliei-efore very fixvorable to fruit. The sea-breeze 
pouring through the Straits of Carquinez, keeps off the frost, 
and some unexplained cause throws all the fog over to the 
northern side of the strait, thus giving the fruit on the south- 
ern shore an abundance of sunshine. The town was founded 
about the time the gold was discovered. 

§ 289. Pacheco. — The town of Pacheco, or Pachecoville, is 
one of the newest in the state, having been founded late in 



SOCIETY. 415 

1858. It is built at the head of navigation of the Pachcco 
Slough, and is the shipphig port of Pacheco, San Ramon, Di- 
ablo and Taylor valleys. The distance to Martinez is four 
miles, further than farmers like to haul their grain, when they 
can avoid it. To bring the shipping point nearer to them, 
Pacheco was built. The distance from Pacheco to the bay, in 
a straight line through the tule land, is about four miles ; the 
distance by the slough is six miles. The slough is bare at low 
water ; at high water it is navigable for sloops and schooners 
drawing six feet. In 1859 Pacheco shipped 180,000 sacks of 
grain. The population is about six hundred. 

§ 290. Sidsun. — Suisun, a village of about sixty houses, is 
on the western bank of the Suisun Slough in Solano county, 
about ten miles in a direct line from Suisun Bay and sixteen 
miles by the slough. The place was commenced on a little 
island, a couple of hundred yards in diameter, and no part of 
it more than a foot above the highest tide. It is surrounded 
by tules, or salt-water rushes, groAving on land overflowed at 
every high tide and bare at low tide. Two roads lead from 
the dry land of the valley to the city — one of them a plank- 
road, now in a very dilapidated condition. Most of the streets 
are subject to overflow by spring tides, and the marks of the 
water can be seen upon them even when dry, A few lots have 
been raised above high tide by bringing earth from other 
places, and enclosures are made by digging ditches, in which 
the water is never more than two feet below the surface. The 
island, being in the tule, was not included in the Suisun grant, 
and it was claimed, in 1853, by two men who laid ofl" the town, 
and who are now in litigation with each other about the un- 
sold land. The place owes its importance to its advantages 
as the shipping point of the valley. The Suisun Slough is 
said to be the best slough in the state ; that means, that it is 
wider and deeper than the sloughs through which vessels 
reach Stockton, Sonoma, Naj^a, San Antonio, Petaluma, Pa- 
checo, and Alviso. Vessels drawing nine feet of water can 
outer the slough. The town is sixty-five miles from San Fran- 



416 EESOUECES OF CALIFOKXIA 

cisco, with which city there is regular steamboat communica- 
tion. The town is one mile from dry land, on the edge 
whereof, immediately north of Suisun, lies Fairfield, which 
is the county scat, and has about five hundred inhabitants. 
Fairfield is on the route of the projected Benicia and Marys- 
ville railway. 

§ 291. JBenicia. — Benicia is situated on the northern side 
of the Straits of Carquinez. It was laid out in 1847, and for 
a time it aspired to be the great commercial city of the coast, 
which aspiration it did not abandon until as late as 1853. It 
was twice made the state capital, and twice deserted by the 
legislature. It has about one thousand inhabitants. The 
houses are scattered a,bout so far from each other that the 
town is called, in sport, " The City of Magnificent Distances." 
A ferry-boat crosses the strait to Carquinez about six or eight 
times every day. The town site is composed of low bare hills. 
The climate is very windy. 

§ 292. JVajKf. — Napa was laid off in 1848 by Xathan 
Coombs at the ford of Xapa Kiver, on the road from Benicia 
to Sonoma. In those days there were no bridges or ferries, 
and the position of the ford determined the location of the 
town. Now the ford is never used, but the investment of 
capital has made the town permanent. If mere natural ad- 
vantages were to be taken into account, the town would be 
at Suscol, which is six miles nearer to the bay, and always ac- 
cessible by small steamers, while at low tide the boats must 
stop several miles below ISTapa. The population of the place 
is about one thousand. The houses are of wood and brick, 
and neatlv built. 

§ 293. Crescent City. — Crescent City is a seaport of six 
hundred inhabitnnts, fifteen miles south of the Oregon line. 
The place was founded in 1853, with the expectation that be- 
cause of its proximity to the mines of the Klamath and Rogue 
River basins, it would become an important commercial point 
for the imports of Southern Oregon and Northern California. 
Its founders, however, were disappointed in this expectation. 



SOCIETY. 417 

The people at the liead of the Sacramento valley, knowing 
that an attempt was making to cut off a large part of their 
tiade, went to work industriously and made a good wagon 
road to Yreka, and thus reduced the freights to that place 
very much. The country westward of Yreka is very rugged, 
and as the people of Crescent Cityhad not the capital to make 
a wagon road, their goods had to be transported at much ex- 
pense on mules ; and Yreka and vicinity continue to make 
their imports arrd exports by way of the Sacramento River. 
Crescent City, therefore, remains a small place, but it supplies 
a district within a range of forty or fifty miles to the east and 
northeast. Trinidad is a small seaport which is the chief 
trading point of the miners in Klamath county. 

§ 294. Areata. — Areata is a town of eight hundred inhab- 
itants, at the northern end of Humboldt Bay. It was founded 
in 1850 with the exj^ectation that the miners in the basin of 
the Trinity River would obtain all their imports through it ; 
but the only means of conveying goods from Humboldt Bay 
was a bad mule trail through a rugged country infested by 
hostile Indians, so the trade continued to go by the way of the 
Sacramento River. It is probable, however, that the current 
of this trade will be changed within a year or two. A wagon 
road is being made to Weaverville, a distance of eighty miles, 
and the Indians have been driven away. At the present time 
fifteen hundred pack-mules are used in conveying goods from 
Areata to the various parts of Humboldt, Klamath, and Trinity 
counties.' The name of Areata was adopted in 1860; previ- 
ous to that time the town was called Union. 

§ 295. Anaheim. — Anaheim is the only German town in 
the state. It Avas laid out by Germans, built up by Germans, 
and is populated and owned by Germans. But it will never 
have the foreign character which marks many German villages 
in the valley states of the Mississi}>pi, where the English 
language is not known to any of the people. None of the 
Anaheimers have come direct from Germany; all of them 
have lived for some time among the Americans, and most of 
19 



il8 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

them speak English fluently. The English language will bo 
the predomniant tongue, although German will long be cher- 
ished. The number of residents is now three hundred, with 
a certainty that they must rapidly increase. Anaheim is a 
tract of land a mile wide by a mile and a half long, in the 
valley of the Santa Anna River, Los Angeles county. It was 
unoccupied, and supposed to be of little value in 1857, when 
it was bought for two dollars an ^cre by a German company 
of fifty members, mostly residing in San Francisco. They 
were incorporated as a joint-stock association. Tlie land, con- 
taining one thousand one hundred and sixty-eight acres, was 
divided into fifty lots of twenty acres each, with a little town- 
plat in the middle, and convenient streets. The place was given 
in charge of a superintendent, who held his position two years, 
in which time he planted and cultivated eight acres of every 
lot with vines, and put willow hedges (nearly all the fences in 
Los Angeles county are of willow) all around the outer boun- 
dary of the tract, and along the principal streets inside. Dur- 
ing a large part of the time he hired fifty laborers. The total 
expense for the two years was seventy thousand dollars, or 
one thousand four hundred dollars per lot of twenty acres, 
including eight acres of vine. The owner of a vineyard lot 
had a little town-lot of half an acre besides. In December, 
1859, the property was divided by lot among the members, 
many of whom have now removed to the place and made their 
home there. There are nearly six hundred acres lying vacant, 
and the welfare of the vineyards requires that this land should 
be cultivated, for now it is covered with ^Yeeds and brush, and 
is the home of innumerable hares, squirrels, and gophers, which 
eat the vines, young trees, and grapes. When cultivated and 
irrigated, these pests will be drowned out and driven off, and 
the labor of the vine-grower will be much reduced upon the 
land now under tillage. When the whole tract shall be filled 
with bearing vines, it will produce twice as much wine as the 
town of Los Angeles docs now, and nearly as much as that 
town will be able to produce when all its j^resent vines shall 



SOCIETY. 419 

be in full bearing — for about half of its million vines arc still 
less than four years of age. Anaheim has some advantages 
over Los Angeles, in the regularity of its plan, and perhaps, 
also, in location (for it is nearer the ocean, and f irther from 
the snowy mountains) and iii the extent of rich land in its 
neighborhood, and in its location near the direct line of travel 
between San Pedro and San Bernardino, the latter being not 
only an important place for its own trade, but still more for 
its trade with Salt Lake. On the other hand, Los Angeles 
has the start, the capital, the houses, the merchants, and all 
those advantages which an old and prosperous town has over 
a little upstart of a village, and Anaheim must long, if not 
always, be a place of inferior importance, as compared with it. 

§ 296. Monterey ^ etc. — Monterey, which previous to 1849, 
was the political ca23ital and commercial centre of the terri- 
tory, is now one of the least important towns of the state. 
.Most of the houses are of adobes. The population is about 
one thousand. 

Sonoma, which was founded in 1823, and was, up to 1850, 
the most important town north of the bay of San Pal)lo, 
has been gradually losing its trade and population ; but the 
extensive production of wine in which its citizens are now 
engaged, may bring it up again. The houses are mostly of 
adobes. The tallest adobe house in the state, containing three 
high stories, is in Sonoma. It was commenced in 1835, and 
was never finished. After the walls had been erected, they 
were covered by a roof which projected three feet on all sides, 
and thus the building has remained. The walls are about 
three feet thick. The old buildings of the Mission of San 
Francisco Solano are in a very dilapidated condition. Sonoma 
is ten miles distant from San Pablo Bay, but the Sonoma 
Slougli is navigable to the Enibarcadero, which is only three 
miles from the town. 

San Diego has a population of about eight hundred. The 
town once aspired to be the terminus of a railroad, which was 
to cross the continent about latitude 32°, but such aspirations 



420 RESOTJECES OF CALIF OTlNIA. 

are now pretty nearly abandoned. The harbor is good, but 
the land in San Diego county is not rich, and it may be said 
that the town has no brilliant destiny before it, at least not in 
the near future. The Mission of San Diego was the earliest 
in California and was founded in 1769. 

In Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, nearly all the inhab- 
itants are Spanish Californians, and nearly all the houses are 
of adobes. Both are small, dull places, founded in the last 
century, and the sites of old missions. The San Luis Obispo 
Mission was founded in 1772, that of Santa Barbara in 1782. 

§ 277. Mining Towns. — Weaverville, Shasta, Oroville, 
Quincy, Auburn, Downieville, Mokelumne Hill, Jackson, and 
Mariposa, are large mining towns, and are the county-seats of 
various mining counties, but they possess no features of suf- 
ficient importance to entitle them to separate notice here. 
The mining towns of California, as a general rule, are built in 
canons, with irregular crooked streets. The main business 
street runs through the middle of the canon and is densely 
lined with stores, billiard rooms, liquor shops, restaurants, and 
inns*. Many of those houses are of brick and fire-proof. The 
dwellings are scattered about irregularly ; some are neatly 
built and are surrounded with pleasant gardens ; the majority 
are miserable little shanties or log-cabins, Avith no yard, flowers 
or fruit-trees to give an appearance of home. The population 
of these towns is not permanent. One year they are h«re, 
next they are elsewhere. Li 1854 Oroville was laid out ; in 
1857 it cast one thousand votes, and was the third town in the 
state; in 1860 its glory had departed, and at least a dozen 
towns have now a larger population and a larger trade. 

§ 298. General Remarks. — ^In taking a general view of the 
towns of California, we perceive that all those of the most 
note are exclusively American. San Francisco, Sacramento, 
Marysville, Stockton, Nevada, Grass Valley, Placerville, Co- 
lumbia, Petaluma, Yreka, Shasta, Sonora, Oakland, Yallejo, 
Santa Clara, Downieville, Weaverville, Mokelumne Hill, Au- 
burn, Oroville, Jackson, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, 



BOCIJETT. 421 

Areata, and Crescent City, are American in their origin and 
population. Not one of the old Spanish towns, save San Jose, 
has gained any thing in population since 1846. Los Angeles, 
Sonoma, Monterey, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and San 
Diego have just about the same number of inhabitants now as 
previous to the American conquest. 



422 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
TOPOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 

§ 299. Introductory. — The topographical names of Cahfor- 
nia differ much from those of other states in the Union, where 
there is a disagreeable repetition of familiar names. Our peo- 
ple have not attempted to immortalize Franklin, Jefferson, 
Madison, Adams, Henry, Randolph, Clay, Cass, Benton, Web- 
ster, Taylor, Fillmore, Polk, Pierce, or Buchanan, by affixing 
their tiresome patronymics to counties or towns. All our 
prominent places are designated by titles comparatively new 
to the English language, and strange to Americans. 

The topographical names of the state are derived from three 
languages — Spanish, English, and Indian. Most of the names 
along the southern coast and about the bay of San Francisco — 
districts which were i3opu]ated by the Spaniards long before 
the Americans came to the country — are Spanish. The larger 
rivers in the Sacramento basin were known to the Spaniards, 
and were named by them previous to 1846. The mining dis- 
tricts of the Sierra Nevada and the Klamath basin, and the 
coast north of 40°, were first explored and settled by the 
Americans, and therefore the names are of English origin. 
The Indian names are numerous. 

§ 300. Sacred Sj^anish JVatnes. — The Spanish names may be 
divided into the sacred and profane. The first Spanish set- 
tlers were Catholic missionaries, in whose almanac every day 
is named after some saint, and in whose faith the saints were 
but little below divinity. It was customary for them to keep the 
saints constantly in mind, and when they came to a strange 
place, to name it after the saint upon whose day they had 



TOrOGKAPniCAL NAMES. 429 

reached it. Thus it is that nearly all the settlements made by 
or under tlic missionaries are sanctified. 

The male saints have " San," tlie females " Santa" to pre- 
cede their Christian names, as in English we have " St." 
Some imeducated Americans corrupt the " San" or " Santa" 
before certain Spanish names into " St.," and say " St. Fran- 
cisco," " St. Lucas ;" but the more intelligent Americans ad- 
here strictly to the Spanish spelling and pronunciation of 
topographical names. 

The Missions were all named from saints or sacred dogmas. 
There are San Miguel, San Gabriel, and San Rafael (from the 
three highest angels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael), San Juan 
Bautista and San Juan Capistrano (St. John the Baptist and 
St. John of Capistrano), San Francisco de Assisi and San 
Francisco de Solano, San Luis Rey and San Luis Obispo (St. 
Louis the king and St. Louis the bishop), San Carlos, Santa 
Clara, Santa Barbara, San Jose (St. Joseph), Santa Liez Vir- 
gen y Martyr (St. Liez the virgin and martyr), San Antonio 
de Padua (St. Anthony), San Fernando Rey (St. Ferdinand 
the king), San Buenaventura (St. Good Fortune), La Purisi- 
ma Concepcion (the Most Pure Conception), Nuestra Senora 
de Soledad (our Lady of Solitude), and Santa Cruz (the Holy 
Cross). 

Among the saints whose names are applied to places not 
missions, are San Pedro (Peter), San Pablo (Paul), San Mateo 
(Matthew), San Andres (Andrew), San Marcos (Mark), San 
Simeon, San Joaquin (Joachim), San Nicolas, San Clemente, 
San Lorenzo (Lawrence), San Leandro (Leander), San Pascual, 
San Ramon, San Felipe (Phili]>), San Cayetano (Cayetan), San- 
ta Marta (Martha), Santa Maria, Santa Paula (Pauline), Santa 
Rosa, Santa Isabel, Santa Margarita, Santa Catalina, Santa Su- 
sana, Santa Lucia, and Santa Gertrudis. Otiier Spanish sa- 
cred names, not derived from saints, are Trinidad (Trinity), 
Sacramento (Sacrament), Jesus Maria (Jesus the Son of Ma- 
ry), and Nuestra Senora La Reina de los Angeles (Our Lady 
the Queen of the Argels). 



424 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

§ 301. Profane Spanish Names. — Among the Spanish pro- 
fane names are Agua Fria (cold water), Agua Caliente (hot 
water, or warm sprmg), Vallecito (little valley), Esperanza 
(hope), Campo Seco (dry field), Garote, Ilornitos (little ovens), 
Salinas (salt places), Alameda (a place of elms or cottonwood 
trees), Saucelito (a little clump of willows, more properly 
spelled Sauzalito), Bodega (a vault), Laguna Seca (dry lagoon), 
Cienega (puddle), Merced (mercy), Buena Vista (good vicAv), 
Contra Costa (the opposite coast, the shore opposite the bay 
of San Francisco), Del Norte (of the north), Plumas (feathers), 
Tulare (a place of tules). El Dorado (the golden land), Fresno 
(ash), Nevada (snowy), Sierra (mountain chain). Placer (gold 
diggings), Calaveras (skulls), Mariposa (butterfly), Alcatraz 
(pelican), Farallones (points of rock in the sea), Corte Madera 
(place where wood is cut), Monte (the mountain or forest), 
Loma Prieta (black hill), Monte Diablo (the devil's mountain), 
Montecito (little mountain or little forest), Alamo (elm or cot- 
tonwood tree), Alamo Mocho (the cropped cottonwood), Pajaro 
(bird). Coyote and Tejon (a badger). Some of these names 
have been changed by the Americans. The Spaniards say, 
el Rio de la.s Mariposas (the river of the buttei-fly), el Rio de las 
Calaveras, el Rio de los Pajaros, la Isla de las Alcatraces, la Bahia 
de San Francisco (the bay of San Francisco), La Mision de 
San Gabriel (the Mission of San Gabriel), el Rio de las Salinas. 
The Americans drop the common Spanish nouns of rio^ hahia^ 
and mision., and say Calaveras River, Sahnas River, the Mission 
San Gabriel, etc. Though the plural form of Calaveras and 
Salinas has been preserved, the singular has been adopted for 
Pajaro River, Alcatraz Island, and Coyote Creek. Pajaro River 
was so named because of the great number of wild geese 
and ducks which were formerly seen in its valley. Cape Men- 
docino was named after a noble patron of an early Spanish 
navigator on this coast. Amador county and Amador valley 
were named after Jose M. Amador, who was formerly manager 
of the property of the Mission of San Jose, about 1835. He 
lived in Amador valley, and in 1848 he went with a number of 



T O P O G K A r II I C A L N A 51 E S . 425 

Indians to mine in what is now Amador county. Vallejo, Pa- 
cbeco, Martinez, and Alvarado, are the names of prominent 
men among the Spanish CaUfornians. Some Spanish names 
have been changed into English. The American River was 
formerly called el Hio de los Americanos^ because the Ameri- 
cans entering California usually came down the banks of that 
stream. The Feather River w\as called el JRio de las Plumas^ 
the river of feathers. The "Plumas," after having been aban- 
doned as a designation for the river, was given to the county 
in which the river takes its rise. The Yuba River was called 
by the Spaniards, el Rio de las ZTvas (the river of the grapes). 
The ignorant Spaniards wrote the main word Uhas^ the h and 
V being often confounded in the Castilian tongue. The Ameri- 
cans gave the English pronunciation to the initial w, then wrote 
it " Yubas," as they pronoimced it, and finally changed it to 
the singular. Angel Island was formerly called la Isla de los 
Angeles^ and Mare Island was called la Isla, de las Yeguas. The 
town of Benicia was laid off in 1846, and was first called 
" Francesca," one of the Christian names of the wife of M. G. 
Yallejo, on whose land the town was to be built ; but in March, 
1847, the name of the town of YerbaBuenawas changed to San 
Francisco, and the projector of Beuicia, Mr. Charles D. Semple, 
thought it necessary, for the purpose of avoiding confusion, to 
change the name of his city on paper, so he adopted " Benicia," 
another name of Mrs. Vallejo. The town of Sonora was so 
named because the majority of the first miners there Avere from 
Sonora. The New Almaden quicksilver mine, for some months 
after the nature of the ore was discovered, was called la 3Ii?ia 
de Santa Clara. Its present name was derived from the great 
quicksilver mine of Almaden, in old Spain. The Enriqueta 
quicksilver mine was named after Enriqueta (Henrietta) Lau- 
rencel, the daughter of the managing owner of the rancho at 
the time the mine was discovered. 

§ 302. Indian Names. — The Indian names in California are 
numerous. Among them are Siskiyou, Klamath, Shasta, Te- 
hama, CcJusa, Yolo, Napa, Sonoma, Mokelumne, Tuolumne, 



426 KESOUKCIiyS OF CALIFORNIA. 

Chowcliilla, Cahuilla, Suscol, Suisun, Cosumnes, Temecula, 
Teraascal, Juriipa, Petaluma, Tomales, Yreka, Ukiah, Cuyama, 
Cocomongo, Mayacmas, Bolbones, Giiilicos, Huichica, and 
Hoopah. Most of these are the names of tribes of Indians. 
The Mokehimne, Tuolumne, Chowchilla, Cahuilla, and Cosum- 
nes Rivers were called by the Spaniards el Rio de los Moque- 
lumnes, el Rio de los Tuolumnes, etc. The second syllable of 
Moquelumne was changed by the Americans, to be spelled 
with a h^ which has the same sound as qu before e in Spanish. 
Cahuilla is sometimes vulgarly spelled "Kaweah" by Ameri- 
cans, who thus represent the Spanish pronunciation as nearly 
as possible. Klamath and Shasta were formerly written " Tla- 
math" and " Tshastl.'* Sonoma, by some persons written " Zo- 
noma" in early times, is an Indian word meaning ''valley 
of the moon." Temascal means an Indian sweat-house. So- 
lano is a Spanish word meaning the south wind, but Solano 
county was so called after the chief of the Suisun tribe of In- 
dians. I have not been able to learn whether his name was 
given to him by the Spaniards, or was of Indian origin. Marin 
county was also named after an Indian chief. Yreka is a cor- 
ruption of Wi-e-kah, which means whiteness, and is the Indian 
name of Mount Shasta, at the foot of which the town is situated. 
§ 303. American Names. — ]!^ow we come to the American 
names. Towns are named after Jackson, Washington, Lafay- 
ette, and Stockton (the last was in command of the American 
navy on this coast during the Mexican war). Bigler, one of 
the governors of the state, has been immortalized by having 
his name affixed to a lake. The patronymics of Alexander 
Humboldt and J. A. Sutter are affixed to counties. Trinity 
River was so named because the white men who discovered it 
in the mountains, supposed it emptied into the bay of Trinidad, 
which had been discovered by the Spaniards several centuries 
ago. Marys vilie was first called Yubaville, and then named 
after Mrs. Maiy Covilland, one of the founders of the place. 
Among the pioneer miners of Calaveras county were Murphy, 
Angel, and Carson, and they became the eponyms (to use a 



TOPOGRAPHICAL NAMES. 427 

word coined by Mr. Groto) of the places where they stopped, 
first called Murphy's Camp, Angel's Camp, and Carson's Camp, 
now become j^ermanent towns, which have discarded the 
" camp," and assumed the titles, " Murphy's," " Angel's," etc. 
It is better to drop the s and the .apostrophe, as is sometimes 
done. "Yankee Jim's Camp" — the surname of "Jim" was 
never known to the general public — is now simply Yankee 
Jim. Messrs. Downie, ^yeaver, and Heald were the respective 
eponyms of Downieville, Weaverville, and Healdsburg ; and 
Folsom was named after the owners of the rancho on which it 
was laid out. The knowledge o*r supposition of rich diggings is 
indicated by some of the names of towns. For instance, Ophir, 
Gold Hill, Quartzburg, Placerville, Oroville, Rich Bar, and Tin 
Cup. Placerville was, in 1849, called Hangtown, because it was 
the lirst place where any person was hanged by Lynch law. 
Oroville is a compound of oro, the Spanish word for gold, and 
ville^ the French word for city. Tin Cup was so named because 
the first miners there found the placers so rich that they measur- 
ed their gold in pint tin cups. Many of the bars and camps in 
the mining districts are named after the discoverers or first set- 
tlers. There are Scott's Bar, Long's Bar, Kelly's Bar, Kanaka 
Bar, Negro Bar, Chinese Camp, etc. Other places are named 
from the native places of the first settlers, as Mississippi Bar, 
Ohio Bar, Iowa Hill, Michigan BlulFs, IlHnoistown, AUeghany- 
town, etc. Pine Log is so named because there was, in early 
times, at that place a pine log across the South Fork of the 
Stanislaus River, in such a position as to offer a very convenient 
crossing to miners. Some of the mining camps are named 
from tragic events which occurred there : thus there is a Mur- 
derer's Bar, a Dead Man's Bar, and a Dead Shot Flat. The 
following is a list of some curious names of mining localities: 

Jim Crow Canon, Happy Valley, Ground-IIog's Glory, 

Red Dog, Hell's Delight, Bogus Thunder, 

Jackass Gulch, Devil's Basin, Last Chance, 

Ladies' Caiion, Dead "Wood, Greenliorn Canon, 

Miller's Defeat, Gouge Eye, Shanghai Hill, 

Loafer Hill, Puke Ravine, ShirLtail Canon, 



428 



RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 



Guano Hill, 
Rattlesnake Bar, 
"Whiskey Bar, 
Poverty Hill, 
Greasers' Camp, 
Christian Flat, 
Rough and Ready, 
Ragtown, 
Sugar-Loaf Hill, 
Poker Flat, 
Wild-Cat Bar, 
Dead Mule Cailon, 
Wild Goose Flat, 
Brandy Flat, 
Gridiron Bar, 
Hen-roost Camp, 
Lousy Ravine, 
Lazy Man's Caiion, 
Logtown, 
Git-up-and-git, 
Gopher Flat, 
Stud-horse Caiion, 
Bob Ridley Flat, 
One Eye, 
Push-coach Hill, 
Puppytown, 
Mad Cafion, 



Slap-Jack Bar, 
Quack Hill, 
Pepperbox Flat, 
Nigger Hill, 
Seveuty-six, 
Piety Hill, 
Hog's Diggings, 
Brandy Gulch, 
Liberty HiU, 
Love-Letter Camp, 
Paradise, 

Blue Belly Ravine, 
Sluice Fork, 
Shinbone Peak, 
Seven-up Ravine, 
Loafer's Retreat, 
Humpback Slide, 
Swellhead Diggings, 
Cayote Hill, 
Poo diet own, 
Tankee Doodle, 
Horsetown, 
Petticoat Slide, 
Chucklehead Diggings, 
Mount Zion, 
Barefoot Diffsrinors, 



Skunk Gi.lch, 
Coon Hollow, 
Poor Man's Creek, 
Humbug Canon, 
Bloomer Hill, 
Grizzly Flat, 
Rat-Trap Slide, 
Pike HiU, 
Port Wine, 
Snow Point, 
Nary Red, 
Gas Hill, 
Ladies' Valley, 
Graveyard Canon, 
Gospel Gulch, 
Chicken-Thief Flat, 
Hungry Camp, 
Mud Springs, 
Skinflint, 

American Hollow, 
Gold HiU, 
Pancake Ravine, 
Centipede Hollow, 
Nutcake Camp, 
Seven-by-nine Valley, 
Paint-Pot HiU. 



Plug-Head Gulch, 

Butte county was named from the buttes or high hills on its 
border. Cache Creek was probably so called because some 
trappers buried or cached something on its banks many years 
ago. JButte and Cache are words of French origin, introduced 
into the English language by trappers. 

Anaheim is derived from Ana, the Spanish for Ann, and the 
German word Ae^m, meaning home — and the compound means 
Anna's home. The Ana was suggested by the Santa Ana 
valley, in w^iich Anaheim is built. 

§ 304. Etymology of " California.^'' — There is much doubt 
about the etymology of the word California. Some authors 
contend that it is a compound, derived from the Latin words 
callda (hot) and fornax (furnace). Tlie name was first be- 



TOrOGRArniCAL NAMES. 429 

stowed in the sixteenth centuiy, by Spanish navigators, npon 
Lower California, the southern point of which reaches into the 
troj^ics; and bemg a dry, treeless, bare, and desolate country, 
it may well have appeared to them to be hot as a furnace. 
Some persons, however, suppose the word to be of Indian 
origin. The SjDaniards and Mexicans called the peninsula Baja 
C<:/^//oryi?a, or Low California ; also, Antigua California^ or 
Old California; and the coast further north, Alta California^ 
or High California; also, Nueva California^ or New Califor- 
nia. The two were called JLas Calif ornias^ or the Californias. 
The state constitution was framed in 1849, and commences, 
" We, the people of Cahfornia," etc. This, therefore, is t?ie 
California, and the peninsula south of us is not meant or tliought 
of, unless we use the adjective prefix, and say Lower Cali- 
fornia. 

§ 305^ Pronunciation of Karnes. — In the pronunciation 
of the names of Spanish and Indian origin, the letters have 
usually the Spanish sounds. A is like "a" in far ; e like " a" in 
fare ; i like " ee" in meet ; o like " o" in go ; u like " oo" in 
fool, ^is silent ; j and g^ before e and ^, have a sound similar 
to that of the English " h ;" s never has the sound of 2, but 
is always like " ss" in hiss. (J^, before e and «, is hke " k." 
X^, is " Hi" in William ; n is like " ni" in union. There are 
no diphthongs in Spanish. Every vowel is sounded separately. 
Words ending in a vowel in the singular, have the accent on 
the syllable next the last ; those ending in a consonant, on the 
last. In case any vowel has an accent marked over it, then 
tliat vowel has the accent. The Spaniards of old Spain pro- 
nounce the z before all vowels, and the c before e and ^, like 
"th" in thick; but the Mexicans give them the sound of 5. 

The errors which Americans most frequently commit in 
pronouncing Spanish words are, in giving to a the English 
sounds of " a" in fat and fate ; giving to s the sound of " z ;" 
to j and g^ before e and z, the same sounds as in English ; to 
gu the sound of the English " w ;" and in putting the accent 
on the first syllable — English fashion. The following may 



430 



EESO URGES OP CALIFORNIA. 



serve as a further guide to tbe proper pronunciation of some 
of the names : 



Spanish Xaines and Pronunciation. 
Diego — dee ay go. 
Suisun — soo ee soon. 
Alameda — ah lah may da. 
Sierra — see er ra. 
Xevada — nay vah dah. 
Mateo — mah tay o. 
Monterey — mon ta ray ee. 
Luis Obispo — ^loo eess o bees po. 
Los Angeles — loce an gel es. 
Yallejo — val yiiy ho. 
Yallecito — val yay thee to. 
Joaquin — ho ah keen. 
Juan Bautista— hwan bah oo teestah. 



Spanish Xames and Pronunciation. 
Jose — ho say. 

Jesus Maria — hay soos mah ree ah. 
Puta — ^poo tah. 
Tejon — tay hone. 
Farallones — fah rahl yo nes. 
Gabriel — gah bree ale. 
Rafael — rah fah ale. ^ 

Miguel — mee gale. 
Pajaro — pah hah ro. 
Coyote — CO yo tay. 
Pacheco — ^pah chay co. 
Cahuilla — cah oo eel ya. 
Queretaro — kay ray tah ro. 



This table is not a perfect guide to pronunciation, but only 
an approximation. 

Placer has been anglicized so much that it is commonly 
spoken with the accent on the first syllable. Mokelumne and 
Tuolumne have the accent on the antepenultimate and the 
vowel short. Siskiyou has the accent on the first syllable. 
Sutter is pronounced with the xi like " oo" in foot. Mokel- 
umne is often mispronounced Mac al a my, and the Cosum- 
nes River is not unfrequently called the Macosme. Folsom 
is pronounced like the adjective fulsome. Yosemite has four 
syllables with the accent on the antepenultimate (Yo sem i te). 



G E N E 11 A L S U M M A R Y . 431 



CHAPTER X IT. 

PRESENT AND FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF THE 

STATE. 

§ 306. Geyieral Summary. — Twelve chapters of this book 
have been filled with a detailed statement of the nature and 
characteristics of the resources, industry, and society of Cali- 
FOKXiA. In this chapter, I shall present a summary of their 
main features. 

We have, then, before us a state, lying in the midst of the 
temperate zone, on the western coast of North America; 
bounded on one side by the Pacific Ocean, and on the other 
by a high range of mountains ; reaching through nine degrees 
of longitude and three of latitude ; with a coast-line eight hun- 
dred miles long, and a total area of about one hundred and 
sixty thousand square miles. The heart of the state is drained 
by two large rivers, which run from north and south, unite 
midway, and in their course to the sea form three large and 
deep bays, with secure and spacious harbors. On these bays 
and their tributaries, there are nearly one thousand miles of 
navigable streams now used by steamboats and sailing-vessels. 

The climate near the ocean is the most equable in the world. 
At San Francisco, there is a difference of only seven degrees 
between the mean temperatures of summer and winter — the 
average of the latter season being 50° and of the former 57° 
Fahrenheit. Ice and snow are never seen in winter ; and in 
summer the weather is so cool, that heavy woollen clothing is 
worn every day. There are not more than a dozen days in 
the year too warm for comfort at mid-day, and the oldest in- 
habitant cannot remember a night when blankets were not 



432 RESOUECES OF CALIFOENIA. 

necessary for a comfortable sleep. The climate is just of that 
character most favorable to the constant mental and physical 
activity of men, and to the unvarying health and continuous 
growth of animals and plants. In the interior, the summers 
are much warmer than near the ocean ; while in the mountains 
the winters are much colder. By travelling a few hundred 
miles, the Californian can find almost any temperature that 
he may desire — great warmth in winter, and icy coldness in 
summer. 

The rocks of the state are chiefly granite and tertiary sand- 
stone; the former occupying the high mountains, the latter 
the valleys. In former eras there were several, or perhaps 
many volcanoes in the "range of the Sierra Nevada. Mount 
Shasta was one of them, and it now has hot s^jrings on its 
summit, and sends up sulphurous vapors. On the western 
slope of the Sierra Nevada, about half way between the sum- 
mit and the foot, are numerous bods of slate and veins of 
quartz. The same formations are found in the Klamath basin 
and in other parts of the state ; and in nearly every case they 
are auriferous. There is scarcely a county which does not 
contain gold. The districts which contain enough gold to sup- 
port a mining population, have an area of about ten thousand 
square miles. The gold-yield of the state is about forty-three 
million dollars annually — more than that of any other country, 
save the colony of Victoria, in Australia. 

The number of men engaged in mining may be estimated at 
eighty thousand. Our placers and auriferous quartz veins are 
almost inexhaustible ; there are great mountains of gold-bear- 
ing gravel which cannot be washed away for a century to 
come ; and the quartz-lodes will last still longer. 

The 2:old-minmQ: of California is conducted in the most 
thorough and enterprishig manner. Although the main prin- 
ciples of the sluice and the hydraulic washing were known and 
used, on a small scale, long before the discovery of gold in 
California, it was here that those modes of working were first 
perfected, applied on an extensive scale, and brought into uni- 



GENERAL SUMMARY. 433 

versal use. Large rivers are turned out of their beds ; moun- 
tains are pierced by tunnels ; hills are washed away ; and the 
rivers roll thick with mud to the sea through summer and 
winter. 

The silver-mines of the state were discovered only a short 
time ago, and their value is not yet fully known ; but that 
some of the ore is wonderfully rich, is established beyond a 
doubt. The silver districts are in the basin of Utah, at an 
elevation of five thousand feet or more above the level of the 
sea, in the midst of a desert country. 

In quicksilver, California is the richest country in the world. 
There are extensive beds of sulphur, asphaltum, and plumbago, 
and large lakes and springs impregnated with borax. 

The natural scenery of California is varied and grand. The 
Yosemite valley is a chasm ten miles long, two miles wide, and 
three thousand feet deep, in the heart of the Sierra Nevada, 
without its equal in the Avorld for sublime and picturesque 
scenery. It has a dozen great cascades, the highest of which 
has a fall of thirteen hundred feet. The Mammoth Trees are 
the largest known growths of the vegetable kingdom. There 
are likewise in the state mud-volcanoes, natural bridges, many 
caves, and numerous hot and mineral springs, some of which 
throw out great columns of steam. 

The animals and plants of California are peculiar to this 
coast. The finest group of coniferous trees in the world is 
that of this state. The mammoth tree, the redwood, the 
sugar-pine, the red fir, the yellow fir, and- the TJwja gigantea, 
all reach the wonderful height of three hundred feet; the 
mammoth tree grows to be thirty feet in diameter, the red- 
wood twenty, and the others from eight to twelve. 

The grizzly bear is the largest and strongest indigenous 
animal of the continent ; and the Californian vulture is, next 
to the condor, the largest bird that flies. The sea near our 
coast teems with halibut, turbot, mackerel, herring, sardines, 
anchovies, and smelts ; while sturgeon and salmon are abun- 
dant in our rivers. 



434 KEsorrwCES of California. 

-There are 40,000,000 acres of tillable land in the state, but 
not more than 1,000,000 acres are now cultivated. In 1860, 
the aggregate product of grains and roots of annual growth 
amounted to 14,470,000 bushels, being an average of twenty- 
four bushels to the acre cultivated, and of thirty-eiglit bushels 
to each inhabitant of the state. The crop of barley was the 
largest, measuring 5,700,000 bushels; that of wheat, 5,000,000 
bushels ; oats and potatoes, each, 1,500,000 bushels ; and maize, 
500,000 bushels. The barley forms thirty-nine per cent, of the 
14,470,000 bushels; wheat, thirty-four per cent.; oats and po- 
tatoes, each ten per cent. ; maize, three per cent. ; and beans, 
peas, sweet potatoes, buckwheat, and rye, one-half of one per 
cent. each. 

Farmers in California have many advantages over men of 
the same occupation in other parts of the United States. The 
winter is never so cold as to interrupt their work, and there 
are no storms of rain and hail to destroy their grain and hay. 
They need no barns. Barley thrives better than in any other 
part of the world. The soil and climate are also particularly 
favorable to the growth of wheat, which unites the valuable 
qualities of whiteness, dryness, and glutinousness, to a greater 
degree than any other wheat in the world. Our average crops 
are also larger than in any other place where manure is not 
used extensively. The yield of hops is large, and the focilities 
for drying them, so as to preserve their strength, are better 
than in any other land where they are cultivated. Our kitchen 
vegetables grow to an unparalleled size. Nowhere else have 
pimipkins been seen to reach two hundred and fifty pounds in 
weight each, beets one hundred and twenty pounds, white 
turnips twenty-six pounds, solid-headed cabbages seventy-five 
pounds, carrots ten pounds, water-melons sixty-five pounds, 
onions forty-seven ounces, Irish potatoes seven pounds, sweet 
potatoes fifteen pounds, and so forth. Some cabbages and 
beets haA'e spontaneously become perennials here, continuing 
to grow from year to year, and remaining green throughout 
winter and summer; and many of our kitchen vegetables 



i 



GENERAL SUMMARY. 435 

might be converted into perenniiils Ijy preventing them from 
going to seed. 

The abundance, excellence, and variety of our fruit aston 
ish tlie stranger, though he may have come from the markets 
of London or New York, which di-aw tribute from whole hem- 
ispheres. No market on the globe surpasses ours in variety, 
and yet it is not ten years since we began to import fruit-trees 
direct from the Eastern states and Europe. Our mild winters 
permit the trees to grow during nine or ten months in the 
year, and they grow more rapidly, and reach maturity more 
speedily, than in any other country where they are so healthy, 
and bear so abundantly. The pear and apple trees which were 
planted by the missionaries thirty or forty years ago, are still 
in perfect health, and some of them produce as much as a ton 
of fruit to the tree every year. The apple and pear seem to 
have found liere their most congenial clime. There are no 
worms in our apples ; no curculios in our j^lums or cherries ; 
no Hessian fly or weevil in our wheat. The olive and the fig 
grow luxuriantly beside the apple and the pear. We can pro- 
duce olives better than any of the olive-producing regions of 
the Mediterranean, because we have none of those storms of 
thunder and hail and rain, which frequently destroy the crops 
in southern Europe and Asia Minor. The vine i)roduces more 
abundantly than in any part of Europe, and the crop has never 
failed or been destroyed here, as often happens there. A yield 
of one thousand gallons of wine to the acre is as frequent, pro- 
portionately, in California, as of four hundred in France or Ger- 
many. Our gardens are, in time, to be the most beautiful in 
the world, resplendent with conifers and deciduous trees, with 
the flowers of the temperate zone, and the luxuriant plants of 
the tropics. The shrubs which in New York remain small, 
and live only under shelter, as delicate exotics, are natu- 
ralized in San Francisco, grow almost to tree-like size, remain 
green throughout the year, and bloom during most of the 
months. The rosebush is covered with flowers from January 
to December. 



436 RESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

Domestic herbiverous animals live and increase without 
shelter, and without cultivated food. They reach their full 
growth a year earlier than in the Eastern states. The absence 
of extreme cold gives them a more rapid growth, and exemp- 
tion from many diseases. Sheep produce more wool, are 
healthier, increase more rapidly, and are kept at far less cost 
in California than in any American state east of the Rocky 
Mountains. Bees increase more rapidly, and make more 
honey than there is any record of their doing elsewhere. 
Thunder and rain storms kill a large proj^ortion of the silk- 
worms in Italy, France, Turkey, and China every year ; in the 
valleys of California we never have any lightning, and no rain 
during the season when the silk-worms feed. 

The wages of labor in California are higher than in any 
other part of the world. Mechanics' wages are generally from 
two dollars and fifty cents to four dollars per day ; common 
laborers, from one dollar and seventy-five cents to two dollars 
and fifty cents per day ; farm laborers, and men and maid ser- 
vants, from twenty dollars to thirty dollars per month. Our 
imports and exports of treasure are larger in proportion to our 
population than those of any other state. Our chief city is 
favorably situated for commerce, and its harbor always con- 
tains vessels of the largest size from every sea. It has an un- 
doubted supremacy in the commerce of the north Pacific. We 
have no paper money, and no current coin less than a dime. 

The inhabitants of the state, numbering nearly four hundred 
thousand, represent in their nativities every American state, 
and every continent, and every country of Europe, and many 
of the countries of Asia and Africa. Our population is unsur 
passed in inteUigence, experience in travelHng, and skill in the 
arts. Our society is liberal in tone, and free in intercourse. 

With many drawbacks, which have been set forth clearly 
and unreservedly, California is still the richest part of the civ- 
ilized world. It possesses most of the luxuries of Europe, and 
many of the advantages which the valley of the Ohio had forty 
years ago. It offers an open career to talents. In the few 



SALE OF MINERAL LANDS. 437 

years of its history it has astonished the world, and its chief 
glories are still to come. The arts, the sciences, the refine- 
ments of life, are to find a favored home in California. 

Why is it then that the permanent population of the state 
has not increased more rapidly ? Why have so many of the 
early immigrants left her shores, never to iseturn, by their de- 
parture depriving her of the greatest element of wealth ? Tlie 
great cause is the mismanagement of land-titles by the federal 
government, and the consequence is, that the people have been 
unable to obtain secure homes, and therefore have gone to the 
Eastern states, where they could find permanent residences. 
This mismanagement has prevailed both in the mineral and 
agricidtural districts, and has produced incalculable evils. 

§ 307. Sale of Mineral Lands. — The welfare of every civ- 
ilized state requires a permanent population, a well-regulated 
society, a steady business, and a secure investment of capital 
proportionate to the industrial ability and production of the 
people. These requisites are indispensable to all national pros- 
perity. Their want, if long continued, must inevitably be fol- 
lowed by national ruin. They are wanting in a large portion 
of California. 

In the moral and social, as well as in the physical world, 
cause and effect are inseparably connected ; adequate means 
never tail in leading to correspondent ends ; prosperity or ruin 
comes not by mere chance, but is the necessary result of the 
adoption of good or evil counsel. The iQ-regulated society 
and unsound condition of business in our state, are traceable 
mainly to the insecure tenure of our lands ; and as a necessary 
means to attain social, commercial, and individual health, we 
must have perfect land-titles. I shall speak first of the min- 
eral counties. 

It is a necessary consequence of the want of secure land- 
titles in the mining districts, that the inhabitants should be 
unsettled. There is nothing to fix them lq any one place, while 
many motives impel them to frequent removals ; and the result 
is, that a considerable portion of the mining population is truly 



438 EESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

nomadic iu character. Most of them have poor claims, or 
none at all; and they enact laws, or establish customs having 
the force of laws, that all claims shall be small, usually not 
more than one hundred feet square. These small claims are 
worked out in a month or two, or at most in a year or two, 
and then the miner must go. Perhaps he will find his next 
claim within ten miles, perhaps not within fifty. When he 
gets a claim he may not be able to work it out ; he must not 
only occupy his claim, but he must work it. If he absent him- 
self from it more than three days, during the season in which 
it can be w^orked, for other cause than sickness, it becomes for- 
feit to whomsoever will seize it. In no case can he who mines 
in the river-beds, banks, flats, or gulches consider his claim a 
home for life ; in one case out of a thousand it may employ 
him for ten years. Quartz and tunnel claims are more lasting, 
and many of them will not be exhausted in a lifetime ; but the 
miners employed in these are a small portion of the total 
number. 

The miner is not only not tied to his claim by ownership, or 
the hope of long employment and lasting profit, but he is con- 
stantly tempted by other tracts w^hich are open to him with- 
out price. He may consider himself owner of all the unoccu- 
pied land in the country. He can take and use any of it. No 
one has a better title than he. Every unoccupied gully, flat, 
hill-side, river-bar, river-bank, and quartz-vein is persistently 
trying to seduce him. He can scarcely take a pleasure-walk 
on a Sunday morning without seeing some place which invites 
him to come there and settle, to desert his old home and make 
a new one. And w^hen there is nothing to protect him against 
such temptations, save his belief in the superior mineral wealth 
of his first location, that belief may often be changed by a 
very brief examination of the new place. He has no title to 
the spot w^here he dwells, no substantial improvements, no 
property of any kind save such as he can carry on his back at 
one load. 

The world never saw such a people of travellers as the Cali- 



SALE OF MINERAL LANDS. 439 

foriiians. There are now about 350,000 white inhabitants in 
the state, ^nd more than 250,000 otliers have gone "home" 
during the last twelve years, four-fifths of them never to re- 
turn. Not one-fifth — probably not one-tenth — of the miners 
of 1849 are now in the state, and it would be a difticult, and 
perhaps an impossible task, to find a Californian mining town, 
one-twentieth of whose population has been i^ermaneut there 
since 1850. 

In regard to the men leaving California, it must in fairness 
be stated that many of them are actuated by a desire to be 
with their families, and they see that it is much cheaper for 
them to go to New York than to have their families come to 
S m Francisco ; and there are cases where the families would 
make very great objection, even overlooking the cost of pas- 
sage, against moving to a land so far from all their relatives. 
But, on the other hand, it must be considered also that all the 
men who leave the state, do so seeing and acknowledging, be- 
fore they go, that in climate, mineral resources, the profits of 
labor and trade, the enterprise, intelligence, and generosity of 
the people, the independent spirit of the poor, tlie democratic 
spirit of the rich, and the frank friendliness of all, California 
is far superior to any other part of the American Union, while 
it has many advantages in other respects. Such an acknowl- 
edgment, coming from men leaving a state with which many 
of the most interesting associations of their lives are connected, 
implies a great evil somewhere. Although some of them go 
" home" because they cannot bring their families to Califor- 
nia, yet this is not the fact in one-fourth of the cases ; they go 
because they do not wish to live here, because they will not 
live here. 

Another evil effect of the want of secure land-titles, and 
the consequent unsettled character of the population, is the 
want of good houses and substantial improvements of all kinds. 
The dwellings throughout the mines are, as a class, mere hovels, 
even in the oldest and most thickly-settled districts. In the 
towns it is necessary to have some substantial stores, as a pro- 



440 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA 

tection to the valuable goods kept in them ; but with these ex- 
ceptions, and a few fine residences, even nominal "cities" are 
collections of shanties, scattered about with little regard to 
order, and fitted up w^ith little provision for comfort. 

The wandering character of the population, and the want of 
permanent and comfortable homes, render the mines an unsuit- 
able place of residence for families. There are a few women 
in the mines, and of these few a considerable share are neither 
maids, wives, nor widows. The general proportion of adult 
men to adult women, throughout the mining districts, is prob- 
ably not less than three to one, and to married women, four 
to one. 

It sometimes happens that miners having wives in the east- 
ern states have them come to live in the mines ; but in a con- 
siderable proportion of cases this arrangement is not a per- 
manent one. Anxious as the inexperienced wife may have 
been to live with her husband, and willing as she might be to 
share his privations, the result has often been that she found 
life in the mines unsuited for herself and her children. There 
are many good, virtuous, and intelligent women living in the 
mines, and perhaps as well contented there as they would be 
in any other part of the world ; but there are not enough of 
them. 

If there were no other evil than this scarcity of women 
traceable to the present tenure of the mineral lands, that one 
fact would be enough to settle the question that the mines 
must be sold. The family is no less essential to the good order 
of society and the prosperity of the state than it is to the hap- 
piness of the individual. A community of American families 
must have permanent homes ; they must own the land in fee- 
simple ; and there cannot be a large community of families in 
the mining districts of California unless the land there be sold. 

The scarcity of women is again the first link in a great 
chain of evils. Some men in the mining counties would like 
to marry, but cannot find wives to their choice. They must 
cither travel thousands of miles to get a wife abroad, or take 



SALE OF JIINEKAL LANDS. 441 

some awkward girl just entering her teens, without education 
or experience m society, and entirely incompetent to take 
charge of kitchen or nursery. The scarcity of wives and mar- 
ried women converts many men into tempters, and they must 
cause much misery. And women, knowh.g that they are 
scarce, and therefore in demand, are incited to calculate the 
chances and the profits of fidelity and chastity as compared 
with infidelity and intamy. Family quarrels often ensue, and 
the state has a sad notoriety for the frequency of its separa- 
tions and divorces. A trustworthy gentleman informs me 
th.at, durmg a visit to a mining town in a remote part of the 
state, about seven years ago, he was informed that there were 
in the town one hundred and twenty-seven women, forty-niue 
ot whom though married, were living with men not their hus- 
bands The case is certainly without a parallel, in the state or 
elsewhere ; but the condition of atfairs in this respect has 
changed very much for the better since 1 855. 

The want of families, and the comparative scarcity of intel- 
ligent and good women, deprive the community of many of the 
most wholesome pleasures and ennobling influences which are 
found in other states. The man who has no wife or sweet- 
heart to work for is improvident ; and, unchecked by such 
public opinion as can reign only where well-regulated famUies 
are numerous and society permanent, he gives himself up to 
dissipation, feeling confident that none of his neighbors wiU 
cut his acquaintance on that account. 

As the peo|)le are among strangers, and do not expect to re- 
main among them long, reputation loses its value, and public 
opmion Its power; and thus forces of great influence in pre- 
serving the good order of society elsewhere have compara- 
tively httle influence in the mines. 

The scarcity of families and the consequent unstable state 
of society make servant-girls shy of the country, and the few 
^e,-e demand enormous wages-five and six times greater than 
in New 1 oik. This m.ay at first sight appear to be a fact 
of little importance, but it has really driven thousands of fara- 



442 EESOUIiCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

ilies from the state, and prevented thousands of others from 
cominoC" 

These various social evils chafe and foment one another, and 
the consequence is, that the miners who have come to the state 
intending only to remain a few years are not likely to change 
their intention. It is of course the ambition of most men in 
the country to have homes of their own ; to have wives and 
families, to be with them and to enjoy their society. Since they 
do not propose to become permanent citizens here, if married, 
they do not bring their families with them ; if unmarried, they 
do not marry while here. The necessary effect of this state of . 
affairs is, that there is an exceeding anxiety to get away from 
the country as soon as possible. A feverish excitement pre- 
vails through the whole people. Speculation has risen to an 
unexampled height. The game is, to make a fortune in a few 
months or to be bankrupt ; and there are tens of thousands to 
play at it. Men complain that they cannot enjoy life in the 
mines ; that life there is a mere brutal existence ; and they be- 
come desperate in their anxiety to leave it, to go elsewhere, 
where peace and comfort, permanent homes and social order 
prevail ; where numerous well-regulated families furnish agree- 
able company for the married, and where numerous accom- 
plished young ladies furnish not less agreeable company to the 
unmarried. Most men in California do not live here to enjoy 
life, but to make money, so that they may enjoy life in some 
other country. Not that the people are parsimonious — far 
from it ; but they are puffed up with extravagant expecta- 
tions, or rather determinations. Unless they can earn very 
large wages, they will not work at all. The merchant will 
not be content with a regular business, paying ten times as 
much profit as he could make with a like capital in the East- 
ern states ; he must go into wild speculations, and risk every 
thing upon a remote chance of making a sudden fortune. The 
frequency of insolvencies, particularly in the towns, is inexpli- 
cable, at first, to a man who comes here without understanding 
the peculiar condition of our society ; and the same man, going 



SALE OF MINERAL LA>'DS. 443 

through the raines, will be astonished to see that the mnch- 
abused Chinese are the only class who are always industrious. 
The miner will often do nothing for weeks and months, run- 
ning up long bills for '* boarding," while he waits for rain, or 
the completion of a ditch, or for something else to turn up. 
lie is too high-minded to accept small pay, and would rather 
be idle — at the risk of the boarding-house keeper and store- 
keeper. His idleness is frequently called "prospecting;" he 
travels about hunting for a place to work ; and this prospect- 
ing may be said to employ nearly a fourth part of the raining 
population. The consequence is, that a large portion of the 
miners are always moneyless, or provided with an exceedingly 
small amount of money. At other times they fall upon rich 
deposits, and then try to make up in dissipation for past pri- 
vations. And so the mining population comes to be an im- 
provident one — imsteady, fond of gambling and other wild 
amusements. The fact is that there is not in the whole world 
such another reckless, thriftless, extravagant, improvident pop- 
ulation as in the mining districts of California. 

Another evil effect of our present system of land tenure in 
the mineral districts, is to be found in the gradual lowering of 
the general character of the population in the mining counties. 
Most of the steady, prudent, economical men leave the state 
with more or less money, while the dissipated, thriftless fel- 
lows remain ; the latter class increasing in numbers, the for- 
mer decreasing every year. The only means of fixing and in- 
creasing the former class, and giving them the proper influ- 
ence in our society, is to give them permanent homes ; and 
this policy will at the same time drive away the wrecked spe- 
cimens of humanity among us, and compel them to seek homes 
in the Cimmeriim darkness beyond our borders. 

It is one of the great evils of the tenant-at-will systetn, that 
there is little security for the investment of capital. Land 
should be the main stock of wealth and the main basis of 
:redit, and the increase of its value with increasing popula- 
:ion should be one of the main sources of riches in every new 



444 EESOtJRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

country ; but of tljis kind of property the mining districts are 
deprived by unwise policy. As it is now, it is almost impos-: 
sible to induce the capitalists of San Francisco to invest money 
in, or loan money on, mining enter jorises ; they have learned 
by bitter experience that there is little safety for money in- 
vested in canals and quartz-mills, where there is no title to the 
lauds save possession, which might be lost by abandonment or 
forfeiture at any moment. The consequence is, that the per- 
manent improvements in the mines are rare, in comparison with 
the number which there would be if the mineral lands w^ere 
sold ; and where money is borrowed to make such improve- 
ments, extravagant rates of interest are paid. As a result of the 
comparatively small amount of capital invested, and the lack 
of security for large investments of money in mining enter- 
prises, there is little demand for labor, and the state is full of 
poor men anxious to get w^ork, but unable to find anybody to 
employ them. The immigrants to a new country are gener- 
ally poor men ; and, unless the state of business is such that 
they can confidently expect to obtain profitable employment 
on their first arrival, there is little encouragement for them to 
come. In regard to the certainty of success upon first arrival, 
California ofiers less encouragement to the immigrant than 
many of the states in the Mississippi Valley, and will not ofier 
more until the tenure of lands in the mines shall be changed. 

The present policy drives away the money produced in the 
state. Why do we send 840,000,000 of gold away every year ? 
Simply because w^e cannot give good security for it. We have 
nothing to give as security. We ofier to pay twice as much 
interest as anybody else, and our ofier w^ould be gladly ac- 
cepted, if there were a certainty that we would pay as w^e prom- 
ise ; but there is no certainty, no security. The $50^000,000 
shipped by California to New York last year, would have 
drawn $6,000,000 yearly interest here, while it will draw only 
$3,000,000 there ; and the $8,000,000 shipped to London would 
have drawn $1,600,000 here, while it will draw only $450,000 
in England; but the owners of the $40,000,000 prefer the 



SALE OF MINERAL LANDS. 445 

$3,450,000, witli the New York and London security for cap- 
ital and interest, rather than the promise of $7,600,000, with 
the danger of losing both capital and interest in California. It 
is true, there is a natural drain of specie from countries where 
labor is high, to those where labor is low, because the latter 
import little and export much ; and of course, in this respect, 
California must necessarily become tributary to China, the At- 
lantic states, and Europe ; but, on the other hand, our relations 
with the great centres of capital are so intimate, that we can 
get all the money we want at California rates of hiterest if we 
will but give perfect security for it, and pay the interest with- 
out fail. It would be no light matter for us to owe a hundred 
. millions, and pay California interest on it, to European capital- 
ists ; but it would still be better than to do without the money, 
without the improvements which it would build up, without 
I the population it would attract, and without the fixed wealth 
it would create. 

Again, the present system exercises a most prejudicial efiect 
upon the finances of the state, and bears very unequally upon 
the citizens. The farming districts, where the inhabitants own 
the land, pay heavy land taxes ; whereas mining claims pay no 
taxes at all. The result is, that the taxation upon the men in 
the valleys is about three times as heavy as upon those in the 
mountains. The miners generally have no homes, and no fixed 
property, and cannot be forced to pay taxes. Most of the 
mining counties are deeply in debt, and many are going deeper 
every year. The only way to equalize the taxation is to 
sell the mineral lands, and compel the miner to pay a tax upon 
his mine, as well as the farmer on his farm. 

The proposed sale of the mineral lands is opposed by two 
arguments : first, that it will lead to monopoly ; and, secondly, 
that gold mining in this state is so precarious, that miners 
could not afibrd to have permanent residences and support 
families. 

These two arguments are antagonistic to each other ; both 
cannot be sound ; at least one of them must be fallacious. The 



446 RESOTJECES OF CALIFOENIA. 

" monopoly" argument presupposes not only that the persons 
employed for wages to work the mines will earn enough to 
support themselves and famiUes, but also that the monopolists 
will make a large profit, otherwise their monopoly would not 
last long. The " precarious" argument presupposes that only 
a small portion of the mining land will continue for any con- 
siderable time to pay a living profit ; and that therefore there 
is little encouragement for capitalists to invest their money in 
mining land. The " monopoly" argument presupposes the in- 
vestment of large amounts of capital — the very thing which 
the mines most need ; the " precarious" argument presupposes 
that mining will be more profitable for a man who runs about 
than for one who stays at or near one place. 

All the great social evils which I have mentioned as pre- 
vailing in Cahfornia, are traceable directly to the roving char- 
acter of the people ; render the population permanent and you 
necessarily cure the evils. It is admitted that our mines will 
not be exhausted, and that the number of miners in the whole 
state will not decrease much, if at all, during the next fifty years. 
It is entirely safe to predict that Siskiyou, N^evada, Shasta, 
Placer, El Dorado, Plumas, Sierra, Tuolumne, and Calaveras, 
will be mining counties in 1950. Now if the mining is to be 
continuous, why should not the miner be permanent ? There 
is no necessity that he should be a nomad ; on the contrary, 
his own pecuniary profit and the welfare of society require that 
he should have a fixed residence, and not until he gets that, 
can he be a valuable citizen. 

But it is said the mining population cannot be permanent, be- 
cause mining is a " precarious " business. Well, I should like 
to know what business would not be " precarious," if conduct- 
ed as mining has been in this state during the last ten years. 
Here are one hundred thousand men, mostly without homes ; 
not staying in any one place more than four months at a time, 
on an average ; spending one day out of three in prospecting ; 
refusing to work unless they can make big wages ; running suc- 
cessively to Gold Lake, Gold Bluflf, Kern River, Fraser River, 



SALE OF MINERAL LANDS. 447 

Mono Lake, and Cariboo ; — how could any occupation be other 
tlian precarious, managed in such a manner ? Of course min- 
ing can be made precarious, and these fellows who are always 
ruiniing about are tlie very ones to make it so. It will not be 
made more precarious by permanence. If the five thousand 
miners of El Dorado, and the four thousand miners of Tuo- 
lumne, will just stay where they are, instead of changing places 
with each other three times every year, they will not lose any 
thing on the score of the precariousness of their business. I 
venture to assert that gold mining in California, conducted 
prudently, is not an uncertain business at all. A careful man 
can, with a certainty, earn more than he could as a farmer on 
the praiiies of Illinois, where farming is one of the least pre- 
carious occupations in the world. The permanent citizen can 
afford to mine prudently ; the nomad comes here to make his 
" pile " in a few years ; he has no wife with whom to live joy- 
ously, and, as a matter of course, his mode of mining is pre- 
carious. 

But it is said the capitalists will monopolize the mineral 
lands ; and yet there is not a week that the honest miners do 
not come to San Francisco to solicit capitalists to invest their 
capital in mining enterprises ; and when such an iuA^estmentis 
made to assist a canal or quartz-mill, all the miners in the vi- 
cinity are glad, and property rises in value. Why is there 
more danger of monopoly in mineral lands than in the agricul- 
tural lands ? Are the former more sacred than the latter ? 
Is it to be supposed that capitalists will buy up the minera 
lands and then not work them, but let their money lie idle ? 
Certainly not ; capitalists would be in no hurry to invest large- 
ly at first in the mineral lands ; and if they should they would 
employ large numbers of laborers, to the great benefit of the 
whole country. And the same honest miners who have such 
an abhorrence of " monopoly," — are not three-fourths of thera 
determined to leave this land of unmonopolized freedom to re- 
turn to the Eastern states, where capital is king, and where 
there are no laws to prevent the rich men from monopolizing 



443 RE60UECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

the whole country ? The assertion that the sale of the rain 
eral lands would oifer dangerous advantages to capital, is 
as much as to say that the sale would be followed by the in- 
vestment of capital, and a general rise in the value of prop- 
erty in the mines, and an increase in the amount of their pro- 
duction. 

This "monopoly" argument has been used for years, and 
the miners have come to believe it without ever examining it 
or seeing its absurdity. Instead of caj^ital driving poor men 
out of the mines, it would bring them in ; it would create a 
demand for labor ; and the ten thousand men who are now in 
the mines, anxious to obtain permanent employment, would 
then get what they have been seeking in vain during the last 
four years. If capitalists buy up mining lands, of course they 
will do it with the intention of digging for the gold, and to do 
that they must employ laborers. This kind of labor is not dis- 
honorable ; it is such labor as most of the mechanics in Cali- 
fornia, as well as elsewhere, are engaged in all their lives : that 
is, labor for a fixed salary. It is just such labor as is done 
now by a large portion of the quartz, and hydraulic, and tun- 
nel miners, who consider themselves quite as independent, and 
their occupation as honorable, as if they were cabinless and 
claimless surface diggers. The labor for fixed wages will not 
be unprofitable ; on the contrary, it will remove all precarious- 
ness from the workman's mode of life, and will give him a 
good and certain income, with which he will always be able to 
live comfortably. It is not improbable that wages would rise 
after a sale of the mineral lands. Of course, every purchaser 
would wish to open his claims at once, and workers would be 
in demand. The great danger, if the mineral land were oflered 
for sale, would be, not that too much capital, but that not 
enough would come into the^ mines. Just in proportion to the 
amount of land sold would be the amount of benefit done to 
the state. If none were sold, the present state of affairs would 
continue, and the greatest enemies of the sale could not say 
that any harm had been done ; if a little were sold, the change 



SALE OF MINERAL LANDS. 449 

would be but small ; if much were sold, there would be a 
great increase in the value of mining property and in the de- 
mand for labor. The result of a wxsU-managed sale, or dona- 
tion system, would be that the present miners, and not distant 
capitalists, would come into possession of the richest places, 
and that every man in the state could, at a trifling cost, obtain 
a claim that would furnish him with profitable employment for 
many years. There are certain places in the mines where the 
claims are mostly in quartz-veins or deep banks, which will 
require many years to work them out, and there the popula- 
tion is comparatively stable. Of these places, Grass Valley 
and North San Juan may be taken as examples. The traveller 
sees at once, on approaching them, that there are more com- 
fortable homes, more families, and more peace and sobriety 
among the inhabitants, than in the majority of the mining 
towns. The difterence is a very great and important one, and 
if it can be removed by elevating the other towns to the level 
of those two, the sooner the better. 

The " monopoly" argument was used in Illinois, against the 
sale of the mineral lands there, and prevailed for a time; the 
consequence was, the population was made up of vagrants, and 
the dwellings were all shanties, and society was no society at 
all. Finally the lands were sold, and the result was a great 
benefit to the people and the mining districts, in every social 
and industrial respect. 

It may be objected to the sale of the mineral lands, that 
" the wisdom of our ancestors" has deteniiined that mines 
should always belong to the government, and be open to all 
persons willing to work them. The objection may be recog- 
nized as a good one when that policy is proved to be wise by 
evidence and argument — not till then. The reason of the an- 
cient policy was, that most of the land was owned by ignorant 
and unenterprising people, chiefly nobles, who, if they had 
owned the minerals, would have allowed the natural wealth of 
the land to remain undeveloped. But that state of affairs does 

not and never can exist in California. On the contrary, no- 
20* 



450 RESOUECES OP CALIFORNIA. 

body can so safely be trusted to get all the gold out of a tract 
of laud as the fee-simple ovvuer of it. 

The federal government has refused to sell the mineral 
lands to the state, and the surveyor-general has instructed 
his deputies not to " sectionize" the land in the mineral dis- 
tricts, or within several miles of where any miners are at work. 
The truth is, that a large part of the land in the mining re- 
gioTi contains so little gold that it never can pay the miner, but 
is well suited for agricultural and horticultural purposes. Cali- 
fornians confidently expect that some of the finest fruits and 
wines of our state — and that is as much as to say of the whole 
world — will be produced in the mining counties, within five 
years from the present time ; and the government should pur- 
sue such a policy as will encourage the occupation and cultiva- 
tion of all the land suitable for such purposes. 

If the sale were once determined upon, undoubtedly diffi- 
culties would arise as to the manner of carrying it into execu- 
tion ; but these would be of little import, as compared with 
the evils caused by the present system. The whole mineral 
district should be surveyed at once, and sold in lots to persons 
who will live on, or work them, varying in size, according 
to location and supposed mineral wealth, from one hundred 
and sixty to eighty, forty, twenty, ten, five, two and a half, 
and one and a quarter acres. Perhaps it would be advisable 
to grant at first no lots where many miners may be at work 
within a small space. Large lots of ten, twenty, and forty 
acres, now unoccupied, and which would long remain unoccu- 
pied under the present system, would find abundant buyers 
should the government propose to grant the fee-simple. 

The ofier of the mineral lands of the state, comprising about 
10,000,000 acres, for sale, would present one of the greatest op- 
portunities in the world for large numbers to secure great and 
certain wealth at a small immediate outlay ; and not only every 
man now in the country, but every one who has been here, 
would exert himself to the utmost to become the owner of a 
tract of land, the mines of which would probably clothe him 



SALE OF MINERAL LANDS. 451 

and his sons, and his sons* sons, in wealth, and which, if it were 
barren in gold, would still keep him in comfort with its agri- 
cultural products. From the moment it is known that the 
mineral lands. will be sold, California's regeneration will begin. 
Californians will then determine to make this their permanent 
home ; money will be saved ; and at the time of sale, every 
man will seek to become owner of a tract of mining land, 
which shall enrich himself and his children. After the sale, 
titles being secure, comfortable houses will be built, wives 
will be sent for, minmg will be conducted economically and 
steadily, claims will be worked which now will not pay, our 
population will increase, and so will the yield of our mines ; 
the capital produced here will be retained ; other capital will 
come from abroad, to obtain secure investment on safe titles ; 
poor men, coming from abroad, will always obtain employ- 
ment, and thus can get a start ; railroads and turnpikes will 
be made ; land will rise in value ; the state will obtain its rev- 
enue honorably by the taxation of capital ; society will be- 
come permanent, and public opinion powerful ; dissipation will 
diminish ; and California, instead of being socially the worst, 
will become the best state in the Union. 

The question of the sale of the mineral lands is then the ques- 
tion of the future of the state. The advocates of the measure 
may not succeed this year, or the next ; but they will, they 
must, succeed finally. The fight is between the permanent 
interest of California on one side, and, on the other, the tem- 
porary interests of some roving miners, who care nothing for 
the state, save to get its gold and then leave it. As for all the 
unmarried Americans (whatever their occupation) who may 
come hither to spend a few years — to carry away our gold if 
they are successful, or to remain with us as human wrecks if 
they fiiil — all these are no better for California than so many 
Chinamen ; I call them " white Chinamen." They will not be- 
come permanent citizens ; the yellow Chinamen cannot ; so 
there is not much difference between them. If there is any 
legal, constitutional, and just measure by which we can drivo 



452 EESOTJRCES OF CALIFORNIA. 

the white and the yellow Chinamen out of the country to- 
gether, and obtain white, permanent Californians in their stead, 
I, for one, shall be heartily in favor of it. "California for per- 
manent Californians," is the proper motto for every faithful 
citizen of this state. We must have a political war ; the per- 
manent Californians must conquer the rovers, and compel them 
to settle down or leave. The great question is not whether 
we shall produce much gold or little ; it is whether we shall 
have social and industrial order or disorder, which is equiva- 
lent to the question of ilie permanency or vagrancy of the 
population. I am confident in the belief that the sale of the 
mineral lands would cause a considerable increase of our gold 
yield ; but no matter how great a decrease might ensue, state 
policy requires that the sale should be made, in any case. The 
gold now dug does little benefit to California ; it slips through, 
like water through a sieve ; and serves only to attract the 
vagrants who visit the state merely to despoil it. All the 
money under heaven will not pay for maintaining a system 
under which three-fourths of the people of a large district 
are vagrants, that is, rovers, and where six-sevenths are men. 

It is not unreasonable to assume, that if the present system 
of mining titles be maintained, there will be very slow change 
for the better in the vagrancy of the miners and the inequality 
of the sexes during the next ten years ; and I do not hesitate 
to say that, rather than the present state of afiairs should con- 
tinue, the state government should take efiective measures to 
put a sudden end to all gold mining in the state, by declaring 
it a felony, and making it punishable by severe penalties, so 
that thereafter the people of California would turn their atten- 
tion to such pursuits as farming, horticulture, and stock-raising, 
which contribute to the lasting profit of the state as well as 
the temporary profit of individuals. 

California may be compared to a maiden who has been reared 
to love the paths of purity and peace, but who has been intro- 
duced of late into a corrupt society, and is now surrounded by 
men who wish to dishonor her — enjoy her for a short time, 



MEXICAN GRANTS. 453 

and after gratifying the base impulses of the moment, to have 
no further thought about her welfare, but to desert her for- 
ever, careless whether their desertion prove her ruin or not. 
Froni these men her virtuous soul turns with indignation and 
abhorrence. She welcomes no suitor save him who comes 
offering his whole heart in a life-long union, under solemn 
promise that she alone shall be loved and cherished by him. 

Now let us turn to the manner in which the land-titles in 
the agricultural districts have been managed. 

§ 308. Mexican Gra7its. — Upper California, when con- 
quered by the Americans in 1846, contained about five thou- 
sand Mexican inhabitants, who, with their fathers and grand- 
fathers, had lived here sixty or seventy years. Their chief 
occupation and the main source of their wealth were furnished 
by their herds of kine, horses, and sheep. Most of them dwelt 
in the country, upon ranches which had been granted to them 
for purposes of pasturage by the Mexican government. They 
held their lands under written titles, supposed to be, in most 
cases, legally perfect under the laws of Mexico. The govern- 
ment of that country never questioned or denied the validity 
of such grants as those held by the Californians. The grants 
were made to suit the habits and wants of the people. The 
Californians owned large herds, which were never fed on cul- 
tivated food, never kept in fields, nor placed under shelter. 
In a country where an almost unbroken drought reigns from 
May to November, and where cattle get no food, save wild 
and indigenous grasses, much more land is required to sustain 
a cow, than in those lands where careful cultivation and fre- 
quent rains provide a regular and certain abundance of food 
through the year. A fertile soil, like that of a large portion 
of the Mississippi valley, will sustain five or six head of cattle 
to the acre,; but here three acres of uncultivated fertile land 
are necessary for the support of one cow. Herds of thou- 
sands of kine were not uncommon in California under the 
Mexican dommion. To accommodate these cattle, great tracts 
of land were necessary. The public land was granted not by 



454 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA. - 

the acre, as in the American states, but by the square league 
(containing four thousand four hundred and thirty-eight acres), 
which was " the unit of measurement" in granting public land8 
outside of the towns. The government granted away its lands 
willingly, and without compensation ; no pay was required ; 
the only condition of the grant was, that the grantee should 
occupy the land, build a house on it, and put several hundred 
head of o.ittle on it. Whenever he promised to comply with 
these conditions, he could get a grant of any piece of public 
land, of eleven square leagues or less, for which he might pe- 
tition. It was a grand Mexican homestead law ; and the 
chief complaint made about it was by the government, that 
the number of applicants for grants was not greater. The 
grants were not made according to the American land sys- 
tem, which would have been entirely unsuited to the wants 
and habits of the Mexican people. The public lands in Cali- 
fornia were never surveyed. I do not know whether a Mexi- 
can surveyor was ever seen in California ; I feel confident 
that no ranch was ever surveyed, and its boundaries described, 
with bearings and distances, previous to 1846. The descrip- 
tions of the land granted were very vague. In most cases a 
certain number of leagues were given, within well known 
natural land-marks, which might include a district of fifty or a 
hundred miles square. Li such case, the grantee could locate 
his ranch at any place within the limits. Sometimes a grant 
of so many leagues was made, at a place to which a name had 
been affixed by the Indians or Californians, and then the 
ranch included that spot; sometimes a ranch was described 
as bounded on one side by a range of moimtains, on another 
by a river, and on other sides by I'anches of older date. The 
Californians did not quarrel about their boundaries. If A's 
cattle crossed to B's ranch, for better pasture in the summer, 
B's would probably go to A's at another season. The herds 
were not closely kept. The cattle roamed about almost in a 
wild state, often unseen of man for months. So wild were 
they, that though they knew very well that a man on horse- 



MEXICAN GRANTS. 455 

back was a superior animal and tlieir master, yet tliey consid- 
ered a man on foot as a base and fero<;ious beast, and attacked 
him as they would attack a wolf. Their owner knew his 
property only by the brand placed on them when they were 
calves. From the time when the redhot iron burned into 
their flesh, they roamed untouched by the hands of man, until 
fate decreed that they should be slaughtered to furnish fresh 
meat for their master's household, or hide and tallow for for- 
eign commerce. Evidently this people, with such habits and 
such occupations, did not need to have their lands precisely 
described. Most of the titles were legally valid under the 
Mexican law. There was no motive to commit fraud, because 
land was of little value, and great tracts of rich soil were, up 
to the time of the American conquest, open to every pe- 
titioner. In most cases the actual occupation took place pre- 
vious to 1 840, and had never been interrupted. This occupa- 
tion, the most conclusive proof of good faith, and an equitable 
title in itself, was notorious, and susceptible of proof by hun- 
dreds of witnesses. The paper titles were mostly of indu- 
bitable genuineness, written by the hands of well-known of- 
ficials, bearing regular numbers, referred to in public lists of 
land-titles, and mentioned in government documents of various 
kinds. The proof of the genuineness of the title-papers, the 
good faith of the claimants, and the equitable validity of the 
claims, in nine cases out of ten, was abundant, and, to any man 
at all acquainted with the subject, indubitable. It was then 
evidently the duty of the government of the United States to 
provide for the summary examination of the documents, and 
in every case, where genuine title-papers were found with 
ancient occupation, to order a survey for the establishment of 
boundaries, giving to the claimant at least a prima facie rec- 
ognition of title, subject, perhaps, to investigation in the courts, 
if any person should see fit to assail the validity of the grant. 
But the federal government pursued a policy very difterent 
from this plain duty. It delayed action through 1848, 1849, 
and 1850 ; and first, in 1851, passed an act nominally to " set- 



456 EESOUECES OF CALIFORNIA. 

tie" private land ciaims in California, but really to unsettle 
them and the whole country, and keep them unsettled. That 
act provided for the organization of a court, or land commis- 
sion, to try these claims ; declared every grant of land in Cali- 
fornia to be legally void, though it might be equitably good ; 
and provided that every equitably good claim should be lost 
to the owner, unless he should sue the United States in that 
court, and gain the suit there or on appeal ; and that there 
should be an appeal to the United States District Court, and 
thence to the United States Supreme Court. In all these 
courts the claimant was to be opposed — that is, persecuted — 
by a law agent appointed by the United States, with instruc- 
tions to contest every claim to the utmost. The land com- 
mission organized in San Francisco, on the first of January, 
1852, and continued its sessions until the third of March, 1855, 
when it expired by limitation. It had received eight hundred 
and thirteen petitions. The owner of land, under grant from 
Mexico, was compelled to petition the government of the 
United States for the privilege of keeping it. Of these eight 
hundred and thirteen petitions, some were for lands which 
had never been occupied ; in some cases there were two or 
three petitions from different persons, claiming the same piece 
of land under the same original grant. In some cases the 
original grantee had sold out a large ranch to a number of 
Americans, each of whom presented a petition for his piece ; 
and, in perhaps twenty-five or thirty cases, the title papers 
were forged ; leaving about six hundred original ranches, which 
had been held under indubitably genuine written title and no- 
torious occupation. 

Thus there were eight hundred and thirteen important law- 
suits, involving the titles to ten million acres, — ^nearly all the 
private lands in the state, — to be tried in one court. This tri- 
bunal had three judges, — good lawyers, and industrious, honest 
men. No serious complaint has ever been made against any 
of them. They did what they could. When, at tlie end of 
three years, the time came for them to close their court, they 



MEXICAN GRANTS. 457 

had dispatched all the cases. The trials had been fair, the 
hearings deliberate and public, tlie opposition on the part of 
the Uuited States law agents stubborn. All the law agents 
wei-e competent men, and no one can justly complain that the 
interests of the United States were neglected by any one of 
them. The claimants had been kept in litigation three years ; 
they had been compelled to bring numerous witnesses from 
remote parts of the state, to pay for interpreters, to fee law- 
yers, at rates nnheard of before in the Avorhl, to dance atten- 
dance upon the court, and to leave their homes and their busi- 
ness for months at a time ; but this was not enough. In every 
case where the laud commission confirmed a claim, the United 
States government ordered an appeal to be taken to the 
United States District Court. This was nominally an appeal, 
but really an order for a new trial. Every question of fact 
and law was opened anew. Witnesses were again examined ; 
the whole case was tried as in the original proceeding. There 
are two United States District Courts ; one for the northern 
and another for the southern part of the state ; each being the 
appellate court for all the lands within its own jurisdiction. 
Each of these two courts had other business besides land 
suits ; and in the northern district, where the most important 
cases lay, the court had almost as much admiralty business 
alone as the judges of federal districts in the Atlantic states 
have to manage. Both these Californian district judges were 
good men. In these courts, too, the " interests of the United 
States" were protected by able and industrious lawyers, in- 
structed to oppose the Mexican land claims to the utmost. 
Seven years have elapsed since the first case was appealed 
from the land commission, and there are now a number of 
cases still undecided in the District Courts : but in most of 
the cases decided, the claims of the Mexican grant-holders 
were confirmed a second time. The federal government, still 
not satisfied to let the claimants enter their lands, ordered ap- 
jieals to the United States Supreme Court at Washington. 
This order was not accompanied by any proper provision to 



458 EESOUECES OF CALIFOENIA. 

pay the clerks for making out the transcripts ; and as the ap- 
peal could never be decided, and the claimant never get a per- 
fect title, until the transcript should be sent up, and as the 
transcript never could go up until the clerk had received his 
fees, so the claimant was often compelled to pay the expensed 
of the transcript, amounting in some cases to several hundred 
dollars. This was an expense which custom and law impose 
upon the appellant, but in these cases the United States made 
no provision for repaying the respondent, although he was 
compelled to advance the money. After the appeals had been 
taken to the court of the last resort, the United States Attor- 
ney-General ordered the appeals to be dismissed in about four 
hundred cases, and in about forty cases the United States 
Supreme Court have given judgment in favor of the claim- 
ants, making four hundred and forty claims finally confirmed. 
About one hundred and forty claims have been abandoned 
by the claimants or finally rejected by the courts, and this 
estimate would leave two hundred and thirty cases still be- 
fore the courts for adjudication upon their merits. 

I have said that four hundred and forty cases have been finally 
confirmed, but final confirmation is not equivalent to final settle- 
ment. Up to 1859, it was supposed that when judgment 
on appeal had been rendered in private land claim, by the 
United States Supreme Court, in favor of the claimant, the liti- 
gation between him and the federal government, so fiir as 
that title was concerned, was at an end. But a new law was 
passed, requiring the surveys of the Californian ranches to be 
snbject to review by the United States DistrictCourts. The 
exact boundaries of the claim could only be determined by a 
survey ; and in large ranches, where the boundaries were not 
clearly defined, the location of the ranch became a matter of 
very great importance, often involving values of tens and even 
hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

The consequence of the new law was, that four hundred 
and twenty out of the four hundred and forty finally con- 
firmed claims, are thrown into the courts again ; their settle- 



MEXICAN GRANTS. 459 

meiit is postponed for an indefinite time ; the owners are 
burdened with new Utigation, with indefinite deferment of 
their liopes, with increased costs ; and the country is again 
cheated out of quiet titles, permanent settlers, permanent im- 
provements, and all those blessings of inestimable value which 
come only with numerous fixed and happy homes, and the 
best regulated social order. 

While the government has thus, during twelve years, not 
simply refused to confirm the land-titles granted by Mexico, 
but made bitter and unceasing war upon them, and compelled 
the claimants to bear the expense of the warfare, these claim- 
ants have had to sufifer from the assaults of other and still 
more dangerous and vexatious enemies — the squatters ; who, 
while ostensibly left without countenance by the law, were 
really often engaged in an offensive and defensive alliance 
with the officers of the government. The squatters took the 
land, occupied it, drove away the owner's cattle, cut down 
his trees, fenced in his springs, paid him no rent, paid no 
taxes, by their influence forced him to pay the taxes on the 
land they were occupying, and assessed the taxes at most ex- 
orbitant rates. This system was not rare, but frequent — it 
was practised on not one, but a hundred ranches. And then, 
with the money derived from the land thus obtained, they 
paid lawyers to appear in the name of the United States, 
contest the owner's title, and delay a decision ; and, after 
decision, to get up a contest about the survey and delay a 
settlement of the boundaries. I do not mean to say that every 
Mexican claim is good, or every squatter wrong ; my purpose 
in this article is only to complain of the vast injustice done 
to the owners of honest and legally valid claims, which are the 
great majority of all presented to the c)uits. 

It is fourteen years since Americans became the rulers of 
California, and land-titles are no nearer a settlement than they 
should have been twelve years ago, if a proper system had been 
adopted. The great question about the boundaries, which 
should have been the main subject of action, is now just where 



460 RESOURCES OP CALIFORNIA. 

it was then. The claimants have sold two-fiftlis of their land 
to pay the expenses of litigation-^that is said to be a modest 
estimate by those familiar with the subject — and they are not 
yet done. They have been despoiled of two-fifths of their 
land, deprived of the possession of a large portion of the re- 
mainder, and prevented from selling it while they saw its 
value, in many cases, decreasing steadily with the decay of 
business consequent on the exhaustion of the richest placer 
mines. 

The injury done to the country by the delay in the settle- 
ment of the land-titles is, to a considerable extent, irreparable. 
That delay has caused us to lose, or has prevented our gain- 
ing, a population of a million citizens, of the most valuable 
class. Two hundred thousand men have left our state forever 
— half of them because they could not get permanent homes 
here — and they prevented as many more from coming, who 
would have come if they could have had certain land-titles. 
Not less than fifty thousand men have left us because of the 
unsteadiness of business and the lack of employment, caused 
by want of unquestioned ownership of the soil. Thus I esti- 
mate that the delay in settling our land-titles has cost us two 
hundred and fifty thousand men, representing a total popula- 
tion of one million persons. The golden flood, the grand 
rush of business, the unexampled prosperity which passed 
over the state from 1849 to 1853, has passed away forever ; it 
is too late to repair the damage ; fifty years of peace and 
justice cannot place California where she now would have 
been, had justice and sound policy been adopted twelve years 
ago. 

Thus I have explained the reasons which caused the deser- 
tion of California by many of the best^men who have ever 
visited her shore. Fortunately, every thing in California is 
gradually becoming more stable ; titles in the n^gricultural dis- 
tricts are gradually being settled ; and it is now almost estab- 
lished beyond a doubt, that within a few years the federal 
government must sell a considerable portion of the land in 



MEXICAN GRANTS. 461 

the milling counties, at least those counties not occupied by 
miners. The mining, the agriculture, the commerce, the 
population, and the wealth must continue to increase, and her 
name shall be glorious in the records of industry and on the 
pages of universal history. 



APPENDIX. 

THK PROPORTIONS OF THE SEXES IN CALIFORNIA. 



Alameda. . , . 
Amador . . . . 

Butte 

Calaveras. . . 

Colusa 

Contra Costa 
Del Norte. , . 
El Dorado 




5,489 
6,151 
7,770 
10,088 
1,54.3 
3,395 
1,050 



rresno::.:;;::;;:::;:::;::;: "'?u 

Humboldt .*.','.'.' 1791 

Klamath i'o77 

Los Angeles .".'.*.'!.'.*.'.*.'.".'."' 5 1 12 

Mariposa / o'o or 



Monterey 

'Napa 

Nevada 

Placer 

Plumas 

Sacramento . . . . 

Santa Barbara, , 

San Bernardino. 

Santa Clara. . . , 

Santa Cruz 

San Diego 

San Francisco. . . 

San Joaquin. . . . 

San Luis Obispo. 

San Mateo 

Shasta 

Sierra 

Siskiyou 

Solano 

Sonoma 

Stanislaus 

Sutter 

Tehama 

Trinity 

Tulare 

Tuolumne. . . . 

Yolo 

Tuba 



Mann , 2 339 

Mendocino 2*037 

^^^^^ed ' 'soo 

2,708 
3,445 
11,457 
8,507 
3,284 
14,738 
1,816 
1,482 
7,426 
3,148 
850 
33,990 
6,131 
1,098 
2,211 
3,295 
9,793 
6,252 
4,681 
7,425 
1,60GJ 
2,390 
2,997 
4,469 
3,456 

12,575 
3,196 

10,255 



Total 



'239.856 



3,059 
2,101 
1,967 
2,458 
622 
1,790 
291 
3,671 
225 
777 
143 
3,509 
918 
758 
808, 
314 
1,597 
2,003 
2,081 
2,312 
567 
6,954 
1,362 
1,022 
4,399 
1,704 
399 
21,636 
3,178 
672 
935 
1,023 
1,537 
1,306 
2,446 
4,357 
594 
970 
1,005 1 
639 1 
1,159| 
3,488 
1,493 
3,180 



8,548 
8,252 
9,737 
12,546 
2,165 
5,185 
1,341 
15,515 
999 
2,498 
1,220 
9,221 
4,303 
3,097 
2,905| 
1,114 
4,305 
5,448 
14,1.38 
10,819 
3,851 
21,692 
3,178 
2,504 
11,825 
4,912 
1,249 
55,626 
9,309 
1,770 
3,140 
4,318 
11,330 
7,558 
7,127 
11,782 
2,200 
3,360 
4,002 
5,108 
4,615 
16,063 
4,689 
13,435 



98,149 338,005 



8,927 
10,930 
12,106 
16,299 
2,274 
5,328 
1,993 
20,562 
4,605 
2,694 
1,803 
11,333 
6,243 
3,334 
3,967 
1,141 
4,739 
5,521 
10,446 
13,270 
4,363 
24,142 
3.543 
5,551 
11,912 
4,914 
4,324 
56,802 
9,435 
1,782 
3,214 
4,300 
11.387 
7,b29 
7,169 
11,867 
2,245 
3,390 
4,044 
5,125 
4,6.38 
16,229 
4,716 
13,668 



379,994 



A. ROMAN & CO. 

4.17 AND 4.19 Montgomery Street, 
SAN FRANCISCO. 

Have constantly on hand and for sale at the lowest rates, the 
largest stock of Books on the Pacihc Coast, embracing 

STANDARD AXD MISCELLANEOUS WORKS, 
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE TEXT BOOKS, 

THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS WORKS, 
MEDICAL AND SCIENTIFIC BOOKS, 
JUVENILE AND TOY BOOKS, 

GIFT BOOKS AND PHOTOGRAPH ALBUMS. 

ALSO, A CHOICE ASSORTMENT OF 

STATIONERY. 

New Books Received by every Steamer. 
Books imported to order, at the shortest notice. 

WHOLESALE AND RETAIL. 

A. ROMAl^ & CO., 

Booksellers, Publishers and Importers. 



LIST OF BOOKS 

PUBLISHED BY 

A. ROMAN & COMPANY 



SAN FRANCI??CO, 1867. 



Price. 
Kastel, (Guldo,) Nevada and California Process of Gold 

and Silver Extractiou, for general use, and especially' for the mining 
public of California and Nevada— illustrated by accurate engravings. 
8vo clo .-. $5 00 

Nalil) (Aritiur aud Clxarles,) lustructions lu Oymnaslics, 

Illustrated with fifty-three plates. 4to clo 2 50 

Outcropping^. Being Selections of California Verse. 

Beautifully printed on fine tinted paper, and handsomely bound. 

Small 4toclo, plain 75 

Cloth, gilt 1 00 

Banting, (William,) Letter on Corpulence, addressed to 

the public ; reprinted from the 3d London edition, with a review of the 
work from Blackwood's Magazine. 8vo 60 

Ferris. (Jolin Alexander,) Tlxe Financial I^conomy of tiie 

United States, Illustrated, and some of tiie cauBes which retard the 
progress of California demonstrated ; with an Appendix. 1 mo clo 1 50 

l<anctot,(6enoni,)Clilnese and fc nglisli Plirasc Book, -witli 

the Chinese pronunciation indicated in English ; specially adai)ted for 

the use of Merchants, Travelers aud ramilies. 2nd i^nd revised edition... 1 00 

Layres, (Piof. Augustus)) Tlic elements of Composition. 

l2mo, cloth 1 00 

Liayres, Belles-IiCttx-es. '« lie Second Book of tlie Series 

on Composition, Ilelles-Lettres aud oratory 12nto 1 (jO 

Norman, (liucia,) A Youtli's History of California, from 

the earliest period of its discovery to the present time. 12mo, clo 1 00 

Preston, (Laura,) In Bonds. A Novel. Svo, clo 175 

Paper { 25 

Tlxe Oreek Slave. A Story. By lanthe. 12mo, cloth, 1 00. Paper 76 

Carrie Carlton's Popular Letter "Writer. A neat little ;em.-> 1 00 

Poems. By Chas. Warren Stoddard. An elegant illustrated edition 3 00 

Confucius and tlxe Cliiixese Clas»iics, or x-eadings iix 

Chinese Literature. Edited and Compiled by Rev. A. W. Loomis. "The 

best compendium known to us of the i hinese Classie." — Alfa, 

A handsome 12mo 2 00 

*^* For sale by all Booksellers. Sent postpaid on receipt of price 
by the puhlisliers 

A. ROMAN 8l CO. 

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 



J. O. HANSCOM,) 
H. S. SMITH, 5 



yTHOS. PENDEKGAST, 
tw. W. HANSCOM. 



HEAKSCOia i£ CO. 



S. E. COR. FREKIONT km TEHAMA STREETS, 

SAN FRANCISCO. 



ai I 




3>I A.X17 F-A.CTUKE 



aUARTZ MILL MACHINERY 

OF ALL. KINDS, 

ill mMsi, fmm wmm, 

Dunbar's improved Seif-Adjiisting Piston Packing, 

Now so extensively used in the East and in this State. Requires 

no springs or screws ; is always steam-tight; without 

excessive friction, and never slack or leakv. 

HANSCOM'S CRUSHER, 

The best of the kind now in use in this State or anywhere else. 

AMALGAMATORS & CONCENTRATORS 

Of all kinds furnished to ordor. 



TYLEIS 



»? 



fia 



Givinc; crreater power at lower cost than any wheel in use. Send for 

one of our Circulars, giving full tables. All Wheels warranted to 

give the power as set forth, or the money will be refunded. 

SOLE MAKERS FOR THIS COAST OF THE 

"Pendergast" Wiiite Iron Stamp, Shoes and Dies. 

None GENUINE unless obtained from us. Every one warranted. 

tt^ Patent Machinery of all kinds will be furnished bv us at market 
prices Particular attention to Drawings and Specifications of Machinery, 
which will i)e made to o.dcr. The patronage of the public is respectfully 
solicited. 



NORTH AMSRIGA 



OF IXE^V TTOItK: 



J. -K. EA.TON & CO., 

3\XA.xi.a.sexrs for- t]a.e I»a.oifi<3 Coaiat, 
OFFICE 302 MONTGOMERY ST. 



(■■ 



All Policies Indisputable from moment of issue, and PAYABLE 
on Simple Proof of Death. 



No Restrictions as to Occupation, Residence or Travel- 
ing, OUTSIDE THE TROPICS. 



Policies UTon-Forfeitable. 



Policies Guaranteed by the State of New York 

For tliis Company I^XLClusively, 

SPECIAL DEPOSITS BEING MADE FOR THAT PURPOSE. 



Dividends Declared Annually, and have never been LESS 

THAN FORTY PER CENT. PER ANNUM, 

IN CASH, and if added to the Policy, 

OVER ONE HUNDRED PER CENT. 



Cash Dividend, 1865, 45 per cent. 

SAMUEL PILLSBURY, 

Send for Oiroalars. Local A-gent. 



LR»D 27 



I 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




017 064 140 1 



